Twitch tried to be inclusive using the term "womxn." Instead they alienated LGBTQ people.
Video game streaming platform Twitch tried to prove how inclusive they are of women for Women’s History Month. Instead, they had to issue an apology.
The Amazon-owned platform “originally wanted to use a word that acknowledges the shortcoming of gender-binary language,” and landed on “womxn” instead of saying “women.” But after backlash, the company acknowledged that “we will be using the spelling ‘women’ moving forward” because LGBTQ people called the neologism “othering.”
Twitch initially tweeted on March 1, “Join us in celebrating and supporting all the Womxn creating their own worlds, building their communities, and leading the way on Twitch.”
The spelling and origin of womxn “stems from a longstanding objection to the word woman as it comes from man,” Dr. Clara Bradbury-Rance told the BBC. It’s similar to the term Latinx, which is used as opposed to the gender-associated terms Latino or Latina, and is sometimes used as a more gender-neutral version of the word “woman” to included non-binary femme people.
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