Protestors march outside Twitch HQ as #TransTagNow movement grows

Bill Cooney

A group of protesters gathered outside of Twitch’s San Francisco headquarters to call on the streaming site to add a trans tag for creators to use on the platform.

If you’ve ever searched for a stream on Twitch by going to a specific game or category, then you’re already familiar with tags. They are what the streaming site uses to categorize broadcasts and make them convenient to find in the maze of content that makes up the site.

People have been asking Twitch for a Transgender tag for months now, with the #transtagnow hashtag spreading on Twitter, and on March 8, a small group of streamers took to the sidewalk outside of Twitch’s HQ in San Francisco to try and make sure Twitch got the message.

The protesters were outside of Twitch HQ in SF on March 8.

San Francisco-based Twitch affiliate bluntreaction streamed the gathering on his channel, which apparently lasted a couple of hours on Monday afternoon.

The protesters may have been few, but they were persistent nonetheless, chanting “trans tag now” and even getting the attention of people inside of the building.

‘They see us right now but we want them to know we have a whole community standing behind us,” Twitch streamer Mika Beth told viewers. “I’m going to keep coming back, and keep coming back, until we get a trans tag.”

Twitch does already have an LGBTQIA+ tag on its website, but transgender broadcasters are hoping for a tag that will let interested viewers find their content, specifically.

Allegedly, Twitch has previously claimed they were working toward such a tag. However, after years of silence, those in the community have obviously started brainstorming their own ideas to get it done.

There is a request for a trans tag on Twitch’s user voice site that you can vote for if you’d like to see the tag added, as well. The site has officially replied to the request there, saying in October of 2020 that they “still don’t have anything to share.”

It could be days, weeks, months, or longer until we get a definitive answer from Twitch about adding a transgender tag to the site, but the movement for it only seems to be gaining momentum.

About The Author

Bill is a former writer at Dexerto based in Iowa, who covered esports, gaming and online entertainment for more than two years. With the US team, Bill covered Overwatch, CSGO, Influencer culture, and everything in between.