Twitch indefinitely banned popular streamer Destiny (government name Steven Bonnell II) from its platform for violation of their community guidelines. Twitch refuses to come out and say exactly what Destiny did to warrant the termination. That’s what they do. Twitch, like most online platforms, bans people all the time without specifying what the person did to earn the termination.
According to popular opinion, Twitch banned Destiny over comments he made about the trans women athletes. Or maybe it was something he said about trans women in general. Because Twitch refuses to say why exactly it banned Destiny, they’re denying their streamers a teachable moment.
I know that at least some trans female online content creators are celebrating Destiny’s removal on Twitch. At least one is taking direct credit for it. For example:
I believe the person in the above tweets is mistaken about Twitch being Destiny’s “primary” source of income. Destiny said before that YouTube was his primary income source, not Twitch. Although Destiny began streaming on Twitch around ten years ago, he lost his partner status on the platform last year. He said something spicy and controversial in a debate about rioters, not protesters, during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.
Being a partner on Twitch means you make more money than the average Twitch streamer, but it prevents you from streaming on YouTube. Once Destiny was free to stream on YouTube, it became his largest revenue source.
If there is a lesson in all this, it’s probably not a good idea to speak publicly about transsexuality or trans issues. It’s better to keep those opinions to yourself, even if you think what you have to say is in support of the trans community. Before this incident, many people, including myself, believed Destiny was a supporter of the trans community and trans rights.
I guess we were… wrong?