Hey Twitch, this is an insane policy. I can't believe it's been an issue for this long, and you haven't fixed it and issued an apology. It's been 9 months. Address this immediately.

I am LGBT and I am disappointed in this. Please change this. These are valid words to describe someone and not a slur. Banning them makes this site feel less safe for people in that community.

I agree, that words like gay, trans, and transgender should not be whitelisted words. I am very disappointed about this. I do not know can I even use twitch, if it is nitpicking minorities like this.

I know some people use minority identities as insult, but banning the terms only agrees with them, that the minorities are nothing more than slurs.

I remember when I encountered this in one server and I tried to ask, why they are banning word gay and not other sexualities. I was only told, that if I keep going, I will be banned.

Banned from hateful community? Oh the suffering and true loss. How ever, I really did not think this would be more common issue, and it makes me angry.

I'm new to Twitch and found out today these LGBTQIA+ words are against content guidelines. I'm very surprised! How can you see it this way?
If someone is Gay or Trans they are not allowed to talk about this? If we should not talk about our sexual oriëntation and gender/trans journeys then the words hetero, man, woman, non-binary etc. would also be banned.
I understand banning slurs for this but not the actual words.

Because of this Twitch is not LGBTQIA+ friendly to me. I'm disappointed.

Twitch, as an LGBTQIA+ member of the Twitch community, who comes under several of the terms those letters stand for, I would very much like an explanation of why these words were blacklisted, and for that to be reverted.

Limiting visability of the word Gay or Trans doesn't protect our community but limits our expression. These are not words that should be excluded.

I feel like this shouldn't even be a question at this point! We should test and see if they banned the word "straight".... It's ridiculous! TWITCH CHANGE THIS!!

Twitch.. are you fkn serious right now? What’s wrong with y’all. Fix this ASAP. And shame on you.

UPDATE: I've tested words in various places around twitch and found that you can't use the words "gay" or "trans" in the following places:
channel points
Polls
Go live notifications

When trying to use these words in those places, you are met with an error message stating that your titles goes against content guidelines.

When looking at my live notification history, I was able to use the word "gay" in my notification as recently as April 24th. This means that the content guidelines have changed to prohibit these words within the last month or so right before pride month started. I do still have a channel point redemption with the word "gay" in it from before these changes went into effect. So, if you were using that word before the change, you are grandfathered in but can not add a new channel point redemption with these words.

The best Pride gift y'all could give the community! Please remove this "ban" its rediculous

Come on Twitch, you can do better. You can't have LGBTQIA tags and pride flag bitties/emotes yet ban the words "gay, transsexual and trans".

The queer community should always feel safe and welcome on this platform. Not feel like they are just being used for profit and having their freedom of speech curtailed. Please reverse the word ban.

I totally agree with this. If terms such as “gay” “transgender” and “lgbtqia+” (which is an abbreviation of some of the blocked terms in question) are actual tags on twitch, why are they forbidden to use otherwise? It seems counterproductive.

Hey, I can't edit the ticket anymore but wanted to add evidence to support my claims:
I first discovered an error message when editing channel point redemptions. The error stated that my title was "not compliant with content guidelines" while using the word "Gay"
I went through a bunch of queer words in the titles and found that the words Gay, Trans and Transexual were all flagged with this message. However, the words Queer, Pansexual, Bisexual and Intersex were all permitted.
In addition to being banned in channel point redemptions, these words are also prohibited from being used in polls, predictions, clips and I'm sure other places as well.

Thank you for sharing! Had no idea Twitch was against this, super ridiculous that they are.

please don't leave wonderful people out

Y'all means ALL.

Come on twitch. Be better. You don’t get to use our LGBTQ+ friends and family for profit and advertising, while limiting the language and freedom of expression and identity around it. Let creators and users be seen for who they are.

Trans is an adjective that describes my experience as a human being. It is not an offensive word, and should be one of many celebrated identities, especially during Pride, which is a month long PROTEST against the discrimination of our identities.
To ban these words was a poor decision, likely made by someone who is not affected by the decision. This is why representation matters. A proper community representative could have educated you on how to better combat trolling than to make a choice that only resulted in negatively affecting a protected class of people who were being harassed.

In the end, this choice punished the victims of discrimination, and perpetuated the idea that our identities are shameful and offensive.

Inexcusablly incompetent.

This is what failure looks like.

This is something I never noticed. Thank you so much, Celestial for opening this ticket!

I hope we are able to pass this ticket & stop giving these wonderful words all this negative power ❤️

Thank you so much, Bean.