Popular South Korean Twitch streamer Jinnytty received a 2 week ban for accidentally misgendering a factional videogame character in The Last of Us Part II.
Fans were surprised to see a streamer get banned from Twitch for 2 whole weeks for accidentally calling Abby, the new macho protagonist from The Last of Us Part II, a transgender.
VIDEO: Aussie streamer attacked by magpie during livestream.
Twitch have a very strong policy against hateful conduct and bullying and they often take serious actions against people who violate those rules. However, people have been questioning Twitch’s consistency when it comes to dishing out punishment — sometimes they’re too harsh, sometimes they aren’t hard enough.
Sadly for the popular 27-year-old South Korean Twitch streamer, Jinnytty, it seems as though they were way, way too harsh.
Jinnytty was playing through Naughty Dog’s controversial and very divisive new triple-A game on Twitch when she was hit with a 2 week ban for “hateful conduct.” Her crime, misgendering a fictional videogame character, by accident.
Jinnytty banned for accidentally calling Abby “transgender.”
A lot of people mistake the new Last of Us Part II protagonist as a transgender woman because of her over-the-top masculine physique. Early leaks also suggested that the new hero was, in fact, transgender. That was half true, one of the new characters was transgender… it just wasn’t Abby.
If you haven’t played the new game yet you might want to skip this paragraph as it contain spoilers. Abby is already considered one of the most hated videogame characters of all time, and it has nothing to do with her gender. Gamers are forced to watch her smash Joel’s head with a golf club near the start of the game.
VIDEO: Jinnytty accidentally calls Abby “transgender” during livestream.
What’s worse is that the game then forces you to play that character and tries so desperately to make you fall in love with her. Understandably, not many people are falling in love with the new character, they can barely tolerate her. Such is the case for PewDiePie, Tyler1, and most other massive and influential gamers. This is also the case for Jinnytty.
“I wanna see Ellie and Joel, like seriously,” Jinny said while drudging through the 10 hour Abby part. “I don’t wanna look at this transgender anymore. Please.”
Some people in her chat appeared to take offence to her comments regarding Abby.
Jinnytty responded “…what do you mean, ‘Woah, Jinny!’ You guys call me transgender. Oh my God, you know? I have no patience.”
Shortly later the stream went offline and Jinny took to Discord to say that she had been banned and intends to appeal it.
Later that night she returned to confirm the reason for her ban and that her appeal had been denied. Jinny received a 2 week Twitch ban for “hateful conduct against a protected group.”
What this means is that you are not allowed to make fun of fictional videogame characters on Twitch, especially if they are black or transgender. Fictional videogame characters and their fictional gender identities are now protected by Twitch’s Community Guidelines.
Jinnytty later made a public apology to the LGBTQ+ community for her, alleged, offensive comments, but she has since doubled down saying that her comments were taken out of context.
“I received a suspension on Twitch for commenting on a character called Abby in the Last of Us 2,” the statement reads. “I understand taking the clip out of context it does sound really bad.”
Jinny continues: “I was just not interested in Abby’s story during the game. I thought it was boring and exhausting so I just wanted to say I don’t want to look at her anymore, but I put it in a wrong way.”
Jinnytty later affirms that she accidentally misgendered Abby, “I wasn’t 100% sure if she was transgender or not and I saw a lot of people talking about it, so without thinking I thought it was okay to use the word transgender to describe her.”
She then addressed the LGBTQ+ community and offered her official apology, saying “I really didn’t mean to hate on someone and I have nothing against transgender people. I sincerely apologize for anyone who got offended by it and I promise that in the future, I will be more educated and careful with what I say and do on stream.”
The vast majority of the Twitch community believe that Twitch overreacted to her comment and stand behind Jinny, and they were right. According to StreamerBans, Jinnytty had her ban lifted after just 8 hours.
Jinnytty usually streams every day and, despite the ban reportedly being lifted, she has not gone live since, raising the question whether the ban is still in affect.