Preprint 
 

 1 

Streaming Your Identity: Navigating the 
Presentation of Gender and Sexuality 
through Live Streaming  
Guo Freeman1 & Donghee Yvette Wohn2

 

1School of Computing, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina, USA 
(guof@clemson.edu); 2Department of Informatics, New Jersey Institute of 
Technology, Newark, NJ, USA (wohn@njit.edu) 
 

Abstract. The digital presentation of gender and sexuality has been a long-standing 
concern in HCI and CSCW. There is also a growing interest in exploring more nuanced 
presentations of identity afforded in emerging online social spaces that have not been 
thoroughly studied. In this paper, we endeavor to contribute towards this research 
agenda in yet another new media context -- live streaming -- by analyzing female and 
LGBTQ streamers' practices to present and manage their gender identity and sexual 
identity. Our findings highlight streamers' gender representation and sexual 
representation as a demonstration of controlling their own bodies, an awareness of the 
audiences and the resistance to their expectations, and an exhibition of the affordances 
and power structure of the specific online social space. We extend existing studies on live 
streaming by exploring the understudied gender identity and sexual identity aspect of the 
streaming practices. We also highlight the less audience/performance-oriented but more 
self-driven aspect of digital representations and the importance of affirmation and 
empowerment in this process. We add nuance to the existing HCI/CSCW studies on 
gender and sexuality by investigating a highly dynamic, interactive, and multilayered self-
presentation mechanism emerging in live streaming and point to the need for potential 
new lenses to analyze technology-supported identity construction.  

Keywords: Gender; Sexuality; Self-presentation; Livestreaming 

1 Introduction 
Digital presentation with regard to gender and/or sexuality has been a long-

standing concern in HCI and CSCW as it closely relates to domestic computing, 
experience design, embodied interaction, and aesthetic interaction (Kannabiran 
2011). It also significantly influences emerging HCI research agendas such as 
feminist HCI (Bardzell 2010; Bardzell and Bardzell, 2011; Rode 2011), queering 
HCI (Light 2011), and intersectional HCI (Schlesinger 2017). In the past two 
decades, extensive work has collectively highlighted selective self-
presentation/performance and visibility as two important and mutually 
complementary lenses to understand how people perceive, construct, and manage 



 

 

2 

their digital presentations of gender and sexuality in diverse online social spaces 
such as social media sites, forums, virtual worlds, and multiplayer online games. 
This body of literature has explored issues such as the authenticity of digital 
identities (Haimson and Hoffmann, 2016; Marwick 2005), audience management 
on social media (Devito et al., 2017; Kairam et al., 2012; Litt 2012; Litt and 
Hargittai, 2016), multiplicity in self-presentation within a single platform or 
across multiple platforms (Dimicco and Millen, 2007; Farnham and Churchill; 
Panek et al., 2013), gender roles and queerness in gaming and virtual worlds 
(Ducheneaut 2010; Freeman et al., 2015; Huh and Williams, 2010; Ruberg and 
Shaw, 2017; Yee et al., 2011), and challenges for marginalized users (e.g., 
LGBTQ) to disclose and present themselves online in their everyday lives or 
during important life transitions (Blackwell et al., 2016; Carrasco and Kerne, 
2018; Devito et al., 2018; Haimson 2018; Haimson et al., 2016). 

These studies have provided solid understandings of presenting gender and/or 
sexuality in well-established and widely recognized online social spaces (e.g., 
social networking sites such as Facebook). Yet, with emerging novel social 
technologies that have not been thoroughly studied, to what degree these findings 
and analytical lenses can be applied to new research context is unclear.   

Therefore, there is a growing interest in HCI and CSCW to explore more 
nuanced presentations of identity emerging in online social spaces that have not 
been thoroughly studied, in hopes of 1) shedding light on how these nuanced 
presentations extend our current understandings of gender and sexuality that are 
mediated, constructed, and shaped by technology; and 2) exploring how emerging 
online social spaces can further help online users portray, enact, and experience 
their online identities in novel ways. Examples include the so-called "throwaway 
accounts" on Reddit (Leavitt 2015); the creative use of Tumblr's tagging and blog 
formatting for LGBTQ bloggers' identity construction (Oakley 2016), Instagram's 
affordance for visualizing identify, life changes, and sensitive self-disclosures 
(Andalibi et al., Leaver and Highfield, 2018; Newman 2015); and how location-
based mobile dating apps for LGBTQ users produce sexuality and the "desiring 
user" (Birnholtz et al., 2014; Hardy and Lindtner, 2017).  

In this paper, we endeavor to contribute towards the above-mentioned growing 
research agenda in yet another new media context-- live streaming-- by analyzing 
female and LGBTQ streamers’ practices to present and manage their gender 
identity and sexual identity. Live streaming is unique from any other systems 
regarding self-presentation due to its affordance of high-fidelity and 
multidimensional physical presence -- as a social interaction space, livestreaming 
allows for a variety of inputs (e.g., real time video, audio, and text) that influence 
both the content creator (i.e., streamers) and the audience (i.e., viewers). These 
may introduce new practices and phenomena of self-presentation that distinguish 
from asynchronous and/or low-fidelity text/image-based social media platforms. 
However, while live streaming has been investigated from different views in the 



 

 

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fields of HCI and CSCW, very little study explores the aspect of self-presentation 
in live streaming. Our focus on live streaming, therefore, not only points to the 
increasing importance to understand how identity seamlessly shapes the creation 
and reception of content but also sheds light on how people can present and 
experience their gender identity and sexual identity in new and different ways. 
Especially, we chose female and LGBTQ streamers as our sample because these 
users are often considered marginalized and vulnerable populations in online 
social spaces who further highlight gender and sexuality as keys to their digital 
representations. This directly affects how they behave and interact through live 
streaming. Specifically, we investigate three research questions: 
 RQ1: How do streamers perceive, understand, and interpret their 
presentations of gender and sexuality in the context of live streaming? 
 RQ2: What are streamers' unique strategies to present gender and sexuality 
through live streaming? 
 RQ3: What are the main challenges for streamers' presentations of gender 
and sexuality? 

Our contributions to HCI and CSCW are two-fold. First, our contribution lies 
in the case study itself. There is a growing body of HCI and CSCW literature on 
social engagement and viewer-streamer interaction in live streaming (e.g., 
Hamilton et al., 2014; Wohn et al., 2018). Yet the gender identity and sexual 
identity aspect of the streaming practices is an understudied topic. Our case study, 
therefore, provides empirical evidence of how live streaming platforms afford 
new phenomena and approaches of experiencing and practicing gender identity 
and sexual identity. Second, we contribute towards a growing broader research 
agenda in HCI and CSCW on more nuanced presentations of identity in emerging 
novel online social spaces. We do so in four ways: 1) exploring the less 
audience/performance-oriented but more self-driven aspect of digital 
representations -- as an affirmation of one’s own perception of oneself so as to 
(re)establish connections to the world, the others, and the self; and as an 
empowerment to express and advocate gender and LGBTQ equity; 2) highlighting 
a highly dynamic, interactive, and multilayered self-presentation mechanism 
afforded by a complex system featuring content, viewers, streamers, and 
subculture; 3) pointing to the need for potential new lenses to analyze technology-
supported identity construction beyond selective self-presentation/performance 
and visibility; and 4) calling for more critical research on connections between 
nuanced digital presentation afforded by new and novel systems and unexpected 
social consequences such as tensions between supporting multimodal self-
disclosing as agency and protecting necessary privacy.   



 

 

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2 Background 
Two strands of research are shaping this study: the presentation of gender and 
sexuality in online social spaces; and live streaming as a new social interaction 
space. 

2.1 The Presentation of Gender and Sexuality in Online Social 
Spaces 

Identity, as a central concept to people’s online and offline experiences, often 
seems to be applied with varying meanings, ranging from as a social being 
belonging to a group (e.g., being female or LGBTQ) and as an established image  
of self through putting on specific clothes or make-up to sometimes about 
psychological identity through having better understandings about one’s self. In 
this paper, we especially focus on the gendered and sexualized aspects of identity: 
how one defines and understands his/her self with regard to gender and sexuality, 
and how such understandings affect the way through which one presents his/her 
self in live streaming.  

From a theoretical perspective, gender and sexuality are not two distinct and 
separate categories. Rather, they are intimately related themes that are central to 
identity. The development of gender identity and sexual identity is essential to 
construct stable and consistent identities (Kroger 1995). Discourses of gender and 
sexuality are also inextricably interwoven. Their interrelationships directly affect 
important concepts such as transsexuality and transgender (Richardson 2007). In 
the past two decades, a large body of HCI/CSCW research has investigated the 
complexity of presenting gender and sexuality in online social spaces and how 
technologies afford and mediate such complexity. Many of them focus on well-
established mainstream online social spaces such as Facebook (Bailey et al., 
2013; DeVito et al., 2018; Haimson 2018; Haimson et al., 2016; Litt 2012; Litt 
and Hargittai, 2016; Marwick 2005), Twitter (Walton and Rice, 2013), and 
popular online games and virtual worlds including World of Warcraft, Second 
Life, EverQuest, and Audition (Ducheneaut 2010; Freeman et al., 2016; Freeman 
et al., 2015; Huh and Williams, 2010; Yee et al., 2011).   

In particular, two mutually complementary lenses have been used to analyze 
the intertwining identity-technology relationships. One is selective self-
presentation/performance based on Goffman's metaphor of theatrical 
performance (Goffman 1978). According to Goffman, self-identity is constructed 
in a collective and interactive process within different social settings. In this 
sense, gender representation and sexual representation online are largely 
performed and audience-oriented: it is important for performers (i.e., users who 
endeavor to present themselves online) to identify audiences (i.e., other online 
users who perceive and interpret performers' digital representations) so as to 



 

 

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adjust their performance (i.e., how performers present and practice their gender 
and sexuality online).  

Many existing online social spaces are designed to support such a 
performance/audience-driven approach to present identity. First, many systems 
support the creation of multiple separated profiles or ‘circles’ to carefully ‘craft’ 
the aspect of the self to be presented (Kairam et al., 2012; Marwick 2005). 
Second, people can choose to construct different facets of identity across different 
systems (Farnham and Churchill, 2011). Third, some systems such as online 
gaming and virtual worlds afford the experimentation of completely new 
identities (e.g., cross-gender play) (Huh and Williams, 2010). Therefore, this lens 
highlights how gender and sexuality are portrayed and experienced as a 
combination of conscious personal choices and specific technological affordances 
of online social spaces. It sheds light on a number of identity practices and issues 
with regard to gender and/or sexuality in these spaces, including the authenticity 
and multiplicity of digital identities (Dimicco and Millen, 2007; Farnham and 
Churchill; Haimson et al., 2016; Panek et al., 2013), identity construction based 
on "the imagined audience" (Litt 2012; Litt and Hargittai, 2016), and cross-
gender/queerness gameplay (Freeman et al., 2016; Freeman et al., 2015; Huh and 
Williams, 2010; Ruberg and Shaw, 2017). 

The other lens, visibility, especially attends to marginalized users' (e.g., 
LGBTQ) practices and challenges of presenting gender identity and sexual 
identity in online social spaces. Overall, it refers to such users' control over the 
disclosures of sexual orientation or gender identity to the outgroup (Blackwell et 
al., 2016; Carrasco and Kerne, 2018). In particular, it highlights the broader 
sociopolitical significance of disclosing sexual orientation or gender identity -- it 
is not only important to the individual process of accepting and sharing one's 
identity, but also in political advancement and public advocacy toward greater 
acceptance of non-normative identity (e.g., LGBTQ) (Blackwell et al., 2016). For 
example, this lens has been used to investigate LGBT parents' online disclosures 
(Blackwell et al., 2016), supporting LGBT users' selective visibility on social 
media (Carrasco and Kerne, 2018), and transgender and gender non-conforming 
SNS users’ struggles when disclosing major identity changes online (Haimson et 
al., 2015; 2016). 

More recently, there is an emerging trend in HCI and CSCW to better 
understand more nuanced presentations of identity in emerging online social 
spaces, especially in those that have not been widely studied. Such studies have 
highlighted a number of new phenomena and practices concerning gender and 
sexuality, including: 1) temporality as shown in the so-called "throwaway 
accounts" on Reddit (Leavitt 2015); 2) tagging and formatting as in Tumblr 
LGBTQ bloggers' creative writing (Oakley 2016); 3) visualization as in image-
centric platforms (e.g., Instagram) (Andalibi et al., 2017; Leaver and Highfield, 



 

 

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2018; Newman 2015); and 4) geography as in location-based mobile dating apps 
for LGBTQ users (Birnholtz et al., 2014; Hardy and Lindtner, 2017).  

However, two limitations emerge in prior research. First, a large body of prior 
research has focused on presentation of gender and sexuality in well-established 
mainstream online social spaces (e.g., Facebook and multiplayer games) using the 
selective self-presentation/performance and/or the visibility lenses. Yet, to what 
degree these findings and theoretical lenses can be applied to new research 
context is unclear. Second, live streaming is unique from any other systems 
regarding self-presentation due to the real time and high-fidelity nature of 
interactions and the complicated interactive mechanisms between streamers and 
diverse viewers. Yet, very little study explores the interplay of technology, 
design, and affordance in relation self-presentation in live streaming. Our goal of 
this paper is to contribute towards addressing these two limitations by 
investigating how users present, experience, and affirm their gender identity and 
sexual identity through live streaming, a new social interaction space that affords 
and supports high-fidelity and multidimensional physical presence by real time 
audio, video, and textual interaction.  

2.2 Live Streaming as a New Social Interaction Space 

As a unique new form of interactive media, live streaming combines public 
broadcast of high fidelity live audio and video through Internet and low fidelity 
shared text-based channels open to both streamers and viewers (Hamilton et al., 
2014). Since 2009, live streaming has increasingly become a broader social media 
trend due to the advanced network technologies and the growing public interests 
in user-generated digital content (Hilvert-Bruce et al., 2018; Li et al., 2018). 
Twitch.tv is currently one of the largest live streaming platforms. In the early 
days, Twitch was primarily for video game players to share their gameplay in real 
time. Now it hosts a wide range of live content from gameplay, painting, eating, 
to cooking.  

This new social phenomenon of live streaming has drawn researchers' attention 
to understand its role in (re)shaping interactive experiences, social engagement, 
and sense of community in online social spaces (e.g., Consalvo, 2017; Hamilton 
et al., 2014; Li et al., 2018; Sjoblom and Hamari, 2017; Taylor 2018; Wulf et al., 
2020). It has also opened new research frontiers with regard to viewer-streamer 
interaction (e.g., Cai and Wohn, 2019a; Wohn et al., 2018), content moderation 
(e.g., Seering et al., 2017, Cai and Wohn, 2019b), and privacy issues in 
cyberspace (e.g., Li et al., 2018). Prior research has described live streaming 
platforms such as Twitch as virtual third places where participatory communities 
emerged and encouraged members to engage in shared activities (Hamilton et al., 
2014), or as authentic, unedited views of streamers' personal lives (Tang et al., 
2016). Younger streamers and viewers (e.g., teens) even consider livestreaming 
part of their everyday practices to hang out with others online or spend time with 



 

 

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small group of friends (Lottridge et al., 2017). People watch live streaming for 
various reasons but social interaction, sense of community, meeting new people, 
entertainment, information seeking, and a lack of external support in real life were 
considered main motivations (Hilvert-Bruce et al., 2018; Sjoblom and Hamari, 
2017). Specifically, parasocial relationships, suspense of the video game outcome, 
and using the chat function predominantly contribute to viewers' enjoyment (Wulf 
et al., 2020). 

In particular, though live streaming platforms are sometimes criticized for 
sexism and online harassment, currently numerous efforts have been done to 
encourage the rise of female and LGBTQ streamers (Alexander 2018). As of July 
2018, seventeen out of the fifty most popular creative Twitch streamers are 
female (Smith 2018), and QueersPlayGames (http://queersplaygames.com/) is 
emerging as a well-known community for LGBTQ streamers. However, despite 
live streaming has been investigated as a form of cultural production (Gray 2017, 
Pellicone and Ahn, 2017), a part of digital economy (Johnson 2019; Wohn and 
Freeman, 2020; Wohn et al., 2018), an engagement with cultural heritage (Lu et 
al., 2019), and affective labor and performance (Woodcock and Johnson, 2019), 
very little study explores how this emerging social space both affords people's 
(especially female and LGBTQ streamers') perceptions, experiences, and 
interpretations of their gender identity and sexual identity and introduces new 
challenges in this process. This open space, therefore, leads to the three RQs that 
we proposed at the beginning of this paper. 

3 Methodology 
This study is part of a larger research on social dynamics on live streaming 

platforms. Of all the live streaming platforms, Twitch.tv is considered one of the 
biggest and most popular. It enjoys more than 15 million unique daily visitors, 
each spending an average of 95 minutes watching live gaming and other content 
(https://twitchstats.com/). Between January and May of 2019, there were 4.2 
million monthly streamers, and a cumulative 313 billion minutes watched by 
viewers (https://twitchtracker.com/). Therefore, for this study we especially 
focused on Twitch streamers who were self-identified as women and/or LGBTQ.  

We used various methods and platforms in order to recruit diverse participants. 
First, we attended TwitchCon in person, a convention for Twitch streamers, to 
directly recruit participants. Five participants were recruited in this way. Second, 
we reached out to ethnic minority and LGBTQ online groups. For example, we 
posted recruitment messages on Discord (a computer-mediated communication 
application especially for gamers) channel for Anykey, a non-profit organization 
that advocates for diversity in gaming, as well as other group channels for Black 
streamers and female streamers. Third, we used keywords search (including 
words such as "Twitch, female, woman, streamer, gay, black, Asian, harassment, 



 

 

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lesbian, trans") on Twitter to find people who identified as being a female and/or 
LGBTQ live streamer in their Twitter profile and/or had Tweeted about being 
harassed during streaming. We then directly contacted them either via Twitter 
messages or their emails, if their contact information were listed on their Twitter 
profiles. We contacted 100 streamers through this method.  

We conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with all streamers who 
responded to our recruitment messages and were willing to be interviewed. As a 
result, 25 interviews were conducted. Participants were interviewed either by 
telephone or audio chat on Discord. Interviews lasted between 60 and 90 minutes, 
and participants were given a $50 gift card. Interviews started with questions 
about basic information about participants' stream, such as how often they 
streamed, how long they had been streaming, and the content they streamed. The 
main interview questions were related to their interactions with the audience, self-
presentation, perceptions and uses of the livestreaming systems and features, and 
moderation practices. 

Among the 25 participants, 18 are cis women, two are trans women, and five 
are cis men. Seven participants self-identified their sexual orientation as being 
bisexual, lesbian, queer, or gay. Of the 24 participants who shared their ethnicity, 
12 are White, two are African American, five are Asian, three are Latino, and two 
are mixed race. Table 1 summarizes the demographic information of the 
participants as well as their streaming content and number of followers/channel 
views. 

 
Pseudonym  Gender  Age  Race  Sexual 

Orientation  

Streaming 

Content 

No. of 

followers/channel 
views 

Amy Cis female 30 Latino Bisexual Variety 188k/5M 

Becky Trans 

Woman 

26 White Straight Gaming 254/4.9k 

Cecelia Cis female 24 Mixed Straight Variety 627/56.7k 

Deb Cis female 41 White Straight Creative 2k/77.8k 

Emma Cis female 20 White Straight Gaming 3.9k/37.5M 

Fiona Cis female 19 White Lesbian Creative, Gaming 23k/1.5M 

Georgia Cis female 44 African 

American 

Queer Creative, 

Gaming, Talk 

Show 

5k/212.6k 

Heidi Cis female 24 White Straight Variety 3k/58k  

Iris Cis female 32 White Straight Gaming 508/21k  

Jane Cis female 31 Asian Straight Creative, Gaming 512/11k 

Karen Cis female N/A Asian Straight Art 553/4k 

Lisa Cis female 19 Asian Straight Art, Gaming 6.3k/9k 

Maria Cis female 25 White Straight Creative, Gaming 20.8k/387k 



 

 

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Nancy Trans 

Woman 

N/A White Straight Gaming 66/2.6k 

Olivia Cis female 26 Latino Straight Gaming 2.5k/16k 

Patty Cis female 52 White Straight Gaming 979/22.7k 

Quinn Cis female 24 African 

American 

Straight Gaming 24k/723k 

Rachel Cis female 31 Latino Straight Gaming 536/16.9k 

Stella Cis female 22 Asian Straight Gaming 260/11.9k 

Tina Cis female 33 Asian Straight Gaming N/A 

Andrew Cis male N/A N/A Gay Gaming 266/2.6k 

Bobby Cis male 25 White Bisexual Gaming 533/17k 

Cooper Cis male 29 White Gay Gaming 19k/384k 

Daniel Cis male 28 Latino Bisexual Gaming 227/2.3k 

Everett Cis male 34 White Gay Gaming 45.8k/1.8M 

Table 1: Demographic information of interviewees 
 
Inspired by phenomenology (Eatough and Smith, 2008), we then used an 

empirical, in-depth qualitative analysis of the collected data to explore streamers' 
self-presentation on live streaming, especially with regard to their gender and/or 
sexuality. We sought first-person, subjective, narrative accounts of streamers’ 
experiences of self-presentation in the interviews, and we coded them 
thematically. Our coding and analytical procedures were: 1) we closely read 
through the collected data to acquire a sense of the whole picture as regards how 
streamers approached their gender and sexuality through live streaming and 
collectively identified thematic topics and common features in the data (e.g., 
perceptions, practices, strategies, and challenges) for further analysis; 2) we 
carefully examined and reviewed the thematic topics and developed sub-themes; 
3) we collaborated in an iterative coding process to discuss, combine, and refine 
themes and features to generate a rich description synthesizing streamers' 
interpretations and practices of gender identity and sexual identity on live 
streaming as well as the challenges that they encountered. 

4 Findings 
In this section, we present our findings regarding how streamers presented, 
practiced, and managed their gender and sexual identities through live streaming 
platforms. We divide our findings into three parts: a self-driven approach to 
present gender and sexuality; streamers' key strategies to support such an 
approach by appropriating the live streaming platform; and challenges emerging 
in this process. 



 

 

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4.1 A Self-driven Approach to Present Gender and Sexuality through 
Live Streaming 

An interesting finding emerging in our data is that many participants regarded 
how they presented gender and sexuality through live streaming as self-driven 
regardless of how viewers perceived them. Many described that live streaming 
platforms afforded ‘safe spaces’ for them to reveal non-binary or non-traditional 
gender identity and sexual identity, even amidst the harassment that they would 
sometimes be subject to. For example, Andrew (cis male, age unknown, race 
unknown, gay) noted,  
 

One of my viewers has come out as bisexual in the past couple weeks, so I'm 
super proud of him for that. It was a neat little thing. He definitely thanked me 
and thanked the channel for providing him with a good queer space. 
 
Specifically, we identified three main themes that support streamers' self-

driven approach to present gender and sexuality through live streaming: 
negotiating gender and sexuality in the context of content creation; live streaming 
as an official ‘ritual’ to acknowledge gender and sexuality in public; and 
advocating gender and sexuality as an online activism.  

4.1.1 Negotiating Gender and Sexuality in the Context of Content Creation 

Live streaming is a content-centric social space. Content created by streamers 
is the key to trigger streamer-viewer online interactions and forge the formation 
of interest-based online communities (e.g., gaming, crafting, and DIY making). In 
this sense, how to manage the interactive relations between "who I am" especially 
concerning gender and sexuality and ‘what I create’ (i.e., the need for creating 
and crafting content for viewers) is central to female and LGBTQ streamers' 
digital presentations. Yet many participants noted that in their streaming 
practices, presenting who they were in their own beliefs was more important than 
creating and crafting their digital representations and the streamed content to 
please viewers. For example, some female streamers claimed that a 
straightforward "mirroring" between who they were and what they created-- how 
they presented themselves was not a performance and the content they created 
directly represented their identity. Heidi (cis female, 24, white, straight) 
described,  

 
I don't like to pretend I guess like it's exhausting for me if I have to put on too 
much of a show so I try to keep it as genuine as possible... I don't curate a ton, 
I swear a lot on my stream and that's just how it is and I swear a lot in real life 
too. 

 



 

 

11 

For female streamers such as Heidi, live streaming was less of an audience-
oriented, customized ‘performance’ and more of a novel and meaningful way to 
reinforce and further advocate their understandings of themselves. This self-
driven approach was essential to both attract viewers and satisfy their own social 
and emotional needs.  

However, some LGBTQ streamers seemed to highlight a more dynamic 
relationship between their identity presentation and content creation. On the one 
hand, how they reinforced and further advocated their understandings of 
themselves in novel and meaningful ways through live streaming made the 
content they created more appealing. On the other hand, the popularity of the 
created content attracted more viewers to get to know the streamer as a human 
being in turn. In this process, explicitly disclosing their non-binary or non-
traditional gender and sexuality was fundamental. Everett's (cis male, 34, white, 
gay) account explained this view:  

 
Everybody visiting your channel for the first time is a stranger. You can start 
by saying I am going to play a popular game. If you do it that way, you are 
going to get a lot more people who do not care about you as a person. I would 
say people are in my channel mostly for me and secondarily for the game that I 
am playing. 

 
For Everett, the content he created alone did not define who he was and would 

not attract and retain viewers in an organic way-- viewers would ‘just focus on 
the game’ but ‘do not care about you as a person.’ In this sense, the created 
content is somewhat ethereal: it can be easily copied and become out of date, or 
quickly lose popularity. In contrast, a streamer's digital presentation (e.g., who 
they are) including their gender identity and sexual identity, acts as the backbone 
to make the created content unique, which secures the audience pool: viewers are 
firstly attached to the streamer ‘as a person’ and then follow the content they 
create. This is considered a healthier and more sustainable approach for both 
establishing streamer-viewer interaction and affirming streamers' digital identity. 
In Everett's case, being a gaming streamer was not part of his online identity but 
being a queer gaming streamer was. Therefore, openly disclosing his queer 
identity became a significant and meaningful principle for his streaming practices. 
Such a disclosure not only distinguished him from other game streamers and 
attracted viewers who genuinely cared about him as a human being, but also 
oriented how he defined himself online and behaved accordingly. 

4.1.2 Live Streaming as an Official ‘Ritual’ to Acknowledge Gender and 
Sexuality in Public 

Compared to cis female streamers, LGBTQ streamers especially highlighted 
how presenting their gender and sexuality through live streaming was an official 
‘ritual’ to announce and acknowledge their non-binary or non-traditional identity 



 

 

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to others. Some technological affordances enable them to engage in such rituals, 
such as the ability to ‘tag’ their content with key words such as ‘LGBTQ,’ 
‘Pride,’ or ‘gaymers’ to proactively associate their profile with these attributes. 
By publicly proclaiming these identity markers, streamers can not only express 
themselves but also attract viewers who are allies or supportive of these aspects of 
their identity.  

For example, Becky (trans woman, 26, white, straight), a trans woman, told a 
story about how she revealed her new identity on a live stream:  

 
I didn't want to come out with my old account. I was going to start over and I 
wanted to be open about my identity from the start. Once I saw Twitch talking 
about Twitch Unity1. I thought now was a good time to start. I have a lot of 
trans friends and I kind of wanted a place where they could be themselves and 
not have to worry about anything. 

  
According to this quote, live stream has become an official way for some 

LGBTQ streamers to reveal their gender identity and sexual identity to the public 
(i.e., chose to show their face and voice to all viewers). Though such a disclosure 
may sometimes cause controversies and harassment, these streamers often regard 
it as a fresh ‘start over’ to re-establish and re-negotiate their connections with 
themselves, others, and the society. This start over is symbolic because it 
represents the moment when more intimate self-reflections and self-awareness 
occur and a willingness to be open about gender and sexuality emerges. It is also 
ritualized because it becomes a ceremonial action to fully embrace their non-
binary or non-traditional identity and openly exhibit it to the world. 

In sum, through such a ‘ritual,’ LGBTQ streamers acknowledge that they can 
be perceived and portrayed more like human beings rather than digital figures by 
the viewers. Yet it may also make these streamers more vulnerable since they 
have to implicitly open some of the deepest and most meaningful dimensions of 
their personal lives to online strangers.  

4.1.3 Advocating Gender and Sexuality as an Emerging Activism 

 For some of our participants, how they perceived and presented their gender 
identity and sexual identity online was beyond the individual level of 
understanding, affirming, and negotiating their selves. Rather, it became an 
emerging activism to advocate gender equality and LGBTQ rights through live 
streaming. In this way, their presentation of gender and sexuality started to be 
sociopolitically significant.  
 However, advocating and promoting gender equality and LGBTQ rights 
was not a pre-existing goal for these streamers -- they did not start engaging in 
                                                
1 Twitch Unity was an inclusivity initiative created by Twitch that allowed streamers and viewers to 

associate their streams and usernames with the event. 



 

 

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streaming to seek these values on purpose. Rather, this pursuit gradually emerged 
as part of their everyday streaming practices and became important to how they 
presented their gender identity and sexual identity through live streaming. Even 
some streamers themselves were surprised by this gradual and unexpected 
change, as Amy (cis female, 30, Latino, bisexual) noted,  
 

We are not the so-called Social Justice Warrior but I'm surprised to find out if I 
see a chat is going to the wrong direction, I will speak up. 
 
How did this happen? Many female streamers expressed their concerns that 

though more women were actively engaging in live streaming, they were still 
underrepresented, marginalized, and vulnerable. Some highlighted the traditional 
masculine gaming culture as a potential reason since Twitch started as a game 
streaming platform, for example, ‘if we're good at games people never 
believe that we're actually good at the game because well, you're a 
female. Same thing for streaming’ (Emma, cis female, 20, white, straight) and 
‘female gamers are like unicorns and the idea that Black women don't play 
video games or use technology is a myth that really needs to die’ (Georgia, 
cis female, 44, African American, queer). Some others warned about the 
misogyny in online social spaces in general, such as ‘being a female online just 
makes you an easy target. That's what you get being a Twitch stream girl 
with boobs’ (Stella, cis female, 22, Asian, straight). 

Due to these concerns, many female streamers decided to actively promote and 
reveal their gender identity in their live streaming practices rather than hiding or 
weakening it. Their choice was based on two considerations: increasing the 
visibility of existing female streamers and building role models to encourage 
prospective female streamers. Fiona (cis female, 19, white, lesbian) summarized,  
 

I've learned that I actually have a quite of bit of female streamers more than I 
used to. Just being a strong female voice in the community attracts other 
women to my channel. We get to learn a lot about each other as we have 
serious conversations and real talks and discussions about women in 
streaming. 

 
Through their everyday streaming practices, these streamers gradually realized 

that how they perceived, acknowledged, and presented their gender (i.e., women) 
on live streaming was not just meaningful for themselves but associated with 
deeper social values and political aspirations -- how female streamers demanded a 
voice, fought to have a voice, and actively participated in shaping and 
appropriating the live streaming culture.  

Some female streamers even took a more activist approach: pushing their 
actions to promote gender equality beyond the level of individual channels. In 



 

 

14 

doing so, they vigorously engaged in large-scale community activities and 
campaigns in hopes of making a collective effort to foster a more open, tolerant, 
and friendly social atmosphere for female, LGBTQ, and other marginalized 
streamers. The following two quotes exemplify these efforts:  
 

I have done a lot of campaigns for female empowerment and anti-bullying. 
The promotion of my policy, the zero tolerance policy, is something that a lot 
of people implement on their channels now. It's like if you wanna have a better 
community, try the zero tolerance policy. That doesn't mean just blocking or 
banning people, it also means acknowledging that what they did was 
unacceptable so that way we can promote a more positive community going on 
and going forward. (Olivia, cis female, 26, Latino, straight) 

 
Recently I made a little clip that we put on Twitter. It said using the term titty 
streamer, which so many people use to describe women streaming, is really 
sexist. Even if there is a women who is exploiting her body on Twitch as [a] 
means to attract viewers, even if that is what she is doing openly and 
admittedly, she is still a human being with a personality that doesn't make her 
any less of a human and people should not just degrade her to a pair of boobs. I 
will have talks about those types of things and we'll share clips of me talking 
about that kind of stuff. Usually they will go viral. (Amy, cis female, 30, 
Latino, bisexual) 

 
Collectively, these two quotes highlight female streamers' proactive self-

reflections on presenting gender in order to build a counter-culture against sexism 
and misogyny in the live streaming community. They also proposed several 
concrete recommendations to heighten the activist aspect of their gender identity. 
The first was to widely promote and implement a ‘zero tolerance policy.’ This 
policy would empower female streamers to fight with cyber bullying by educating 
people to respect others and by building a supportive community for all. The 
second was to increase the general public's awareness of gender equality on live 
streaming. One strategy was to optimize other social media platforms outside live 
streaming (e.g., Twitter) to share and spread critiques on sexist attitudes and 
languages towards female streamers. 

Regarding LGBTQ rights, streamers also gradually developed strong voices to 
acknowledge and support the LGBTQ community through live streaming. They 
considered this pursuit both necessary and urgent as LGBTQ streamers were 
often trapped in the debates at the intersection of both gender and sexuality. 
Nancy (trans woman, age unknown, white, straight) described,  

 
When I told people I am trans, they tried to play it like ‘oh okay, that's cool’ 
but then I could tell they never met a trans person before. There was a 



 

 

15 

transition. Females in the industry are not taken seriously either. I get lumped 
into both categories so it's difficult to find my place in this community. 

 
Due to such a double challenge (e.g., ‘get lumped into both categories’), 

LGBTQ streamers felt even more marginalized and developed an even higher 
demand to seek understandings, support, and acknowledgement from the public 
compared to some straight cis female streamers. In doing so, openly 
demonstrating how they understood and experienced gender and sexuality was 
critical to their digital presentation, for example,  
 

I want more people to have hair they are proud of, have nails they are proud of, 
I want people to be proud of how they look and excited to be with others in a 
weird way. I want people to be happy and I think when they see me they see 
someone who is happy and proud of how they feel and look. And hopefully I 
can spread that and have positive influences on others. There are definitely 
proactive ways you can make direct action happen and I choose to be more a 
presence in a space rather than a force in a space. I don't really go out of my 
way to tell people how to live their lives but I do live a life that I think people 
also identify with. (Bobby, cis male, 25, white, bisexual) 

 
Bobby's account well explained why presenting his LGBTQ identity on live 

streaming was much more than just promoting himself or his channel. It was 
about setting up role models to positively influence others (e.g., viewers) who had 
similar struggles regarding self-identification and sense of belongingness. It also 
acted as a proactive but non-violent approach to support the LGBTQ community -
- by ‘showing’ their own lives rather than ‘telling’ people how to live their lives.  

Others also considered openly revealing and presenting their LGBTQ identity 
part of a broader social movement to unite LGBTQ streamers for community 
support and educational purposes. Becky (trans woman, 26, white, straight) 
explained,  
  

It started by me joining LGBT streaming communities when I identified as 
male still. Through meeting some I figured out that I was trans and my 
depression was dysphoria. Then I just made friends and we had shared 
interests.  I live a bit out in the country so it's not easy for me to meet other 
trans people in person. So hanging out in LGBT streaming communities is how 
I meet more people like me.  I learn about their experience and I have people 
I can ask about transitioning stuff. I get information from the source and 
people who experience it first hand rather than websites written by people who 
may or may not know what they're talking about. I just get a satisfaction of 
knowing there are more people like me. 

 



 

 

16 

According to this quote, LGBTQ streamers' advocacy concerning their gender 
and sexuality was not only aspirational (e.g., advocating LGBTQ rights) but also 
experiential: such advocacy cared about how individuals could find emotional 
satisfaction and social support by connecting to a community that was built upon 
shared identities. Features such as collective streaming, which enables multiple 
streamers to stream to one channel at the same time, helped build these shared 
identities. Similar to picture-in-picture, this feature is mostly used when people 
are having ‘talk show’ types of content or playing the same game. Bobby talked 
about how he joined a network of gay streamers who often streamed with each 
other as that was a method to build community and share their viewers.  

At the same time, sometimes streamers wondered if they were qualified to be 
in the unexpected role of educator that they found themselves in. For them, being 
a woman and/or LGBTQ did not necessarily make one fully aware of all 
gender/sexuality issues: ‘I don't feel like it's my role [to be an educator], but I 
do feel that I will end up doing it,’ said Cooper (cis male, 29, white, gay). 

In summary, for female and LGBTQ streamers involved in this study, 
presenting and promoting their gender identity and sexual identity as activism and 
empowerment was an unexpected but emergent outcome of their streaming 
practices. This pursuit gradually grew into a social awareness and responsibility -- 
gender and sexuality were not merely part of their streamer profile but a key to 
their digital presentations through which they advocated equality, justice, and 
social support for underrepresented groups (i.e., female and LGBTQ streamers). 

4.2 Strategies to Present Gender and Sexuality through Live 
Streaming 

To support their self-driven approach to present gender and sexuality, 
streamers developed two core strategies to appropriate the affordances of the live 
streaming technologies: manipulating webcams and microphones to highlight face 
and voice; and intentionally managing clothing and appearance to assert agency. 

4.2.1  Manipulating Webcams and Microphones to Enhance Digital Presence 

The implementation of webcam and microphone is considered central to 
conduct live streaming practices. These devices not only afford a high-fidelity 
presence of streamers but also significantly enrich the streamed content (e.g., 
showing the game being played, the streamer's face, and the streamer's voice 
narrative all simultaneously). In addition, whether and how streamers use 
webcams and microphones indicates a type of power -- the potential to amplify 
the impact of their gender identity and sexual identity at their own will. For 
example, Georgia (cis female, 44, African American, queer) and Becky (trans 
woman, 26, white, straight) explained the powerful role of webcams in their 
streaming practices: 

 



 

 

17 

I want people to see that I'm African American female. I know that that opens 
me up to additional harassment, but I think about it as I want. If somebody is 
Black and they're viewing, they're looking for people to view, I want them to 
see that they're not alone. I pride that over the additional harassment that I 
might get. (Georgia) 
 
I haven't been on hormones super long so I still look masculine. I occasionally 
had to explain what being trans is and it's led to some confrontations. But I 
understand that whether or not I want to, I am a form of representation. For a 
lot of people I'm the first trans person they meet. So educating is a common 
occurrence. (Becky)  
 
Presenting one’s face had various levels of fidelity depending on the 

streamer’s technical equipment and their knowledge of the broadcasting software. 
At the very basic level, streamers used webcams built into their laptops. Yet those 
with more elaborate settings had separate cameras that could achieve a more 
flattering angle of their face, as well as proper lighting (e.g., ring lights). Green 
screens enabled “cropping” of their face so that only their face appears on the 
stream rather than the entire background. Broadcasting both their face and their 
content required streaming software, the most popular ones being Open 
Broadcasting System (OBS), Streamlabs, and XSplit.  

It was rare that streamers had this set up from the very beginning, but 
‘upgraded’ their equipment over time. Sometimes, their viewers helped with these 
upgrades. It was common for streamers to list links to desired equipment, 
software, or computer accessories on their Twitch page in case people wanted to 
purchase and gift them to the streamer. They also held special fundraising 
campaigns—for example, Georgia ran a special stream to upgrade her PC. 

In addition to their appearance, streamers were hyper aware of the effects that 
audio has on their self-presentation. Nancy (trans woman, age unknown, white, 
straight) described her experience of using audio in streaming:  

 
I did not directly tell some people that I'm trans. I was like "oh I'm female" but 
then somebody went "oh the voice" and then they went, "I didn't know." And 
then they just start saying a few pronouns and stuff. They would say "she" as 
some streamers do, but then they would go "he" cause they assume because of 
my voice. It's frustrating but I think it's still important for me to show my 
voice. 
 
The above three quotes show that many female and LGBTQ streamers were 

well aware of the potential risks of using webcams and microphone, including 
possible harassment, confrontations, and confusions about their identity. Yet, 
participants did not regard such devices as threats to their digital presentations. 



 

 

18 

Rather, they considered actively incorporating webcams and microphones a more 
vivid, organic, and comprehensive way to enhance the presence of the 
underrepresented groups, which may facilitate community building and social 
change. For example, viewers would see their faces, hear their voices, and 
potentially know more about them and treat them as human beings rather than IDs 
or profile pictures behind the computer screen. In addition, such an enriched 
presence could positively influence other female or LGBTQ viewers and 
streamers, which motivated them to face, express, and experience their identity 
and made them feel ‘not alone.’ 

It is important to note that when we are talking about streamers’ usage of 
microphones and webcams, it is not about the specific equipment but rather about 
their choice to have it or not. By choosing to omit or include audio and/or video, 
they are asserting control over what they want to present. For example, Rachel 
(cis female, 31, straight), one of the few streamers who chose not to have a 
camera, said that the absence of the camera was due to the fact that she had 
limited technical support as well as the desire to avoid harassment regarding her 
appearance. 

 

4.2.2 Managing Clothing and Appearance for Agency 

Another strategy that many female and LGBTQ streamers used was to 
intentionally manage how they dressed and looked on live streaming. Some 
considered it a proactive tactic to assert their agency and independence as well as 
resilience against the sexism and anti-LGBTQ movement in live streaming. Patty 
(cis female, 52, white, straight) explained,  
 

It really doesn't matter what you look like, how old you are, and how you're 
dressed. You could be dressed like a ninja with everything totally covered and 
somebody would still find something to be rude about. Really, it doesn't 
matter. You should not modify your clothing and look based on what people 
are saying because it doesn't matter. You should just be you.  

 
Some female streamers revealed that they would not purposely dress up or put 

on extra make up just to look more attractive to the viewers. For example,  
 

I'm not a person that's used to putting on a lot of makeup I guess. I know the 
difference between no makeup and camera-ready makeup, so I'll do a little bit 
to make sure that my skin looks somewhat clean and clear. I think our ultimate 
goal is to always come across as clear as possible, so that every detail makes 
sense in that we look real versus fake. (Heidi, cis female, 24, white, straight) 

 
In doing so, these female streamers chose to wear and look like themselves 

regardless of viewers' perceptions and demands. A few participants noted,  



 

 

19 

 
I just kind of learned to wear whatever I'm feeling comfortable in for that day. 
I am not gonna stream here in lingerie um, but if it's hot in my room I will 
wear a tank top and if some people want to come in and make lewd comments 
to me they're gonna get banned. So that's been the evolution of me deciding 
what I want to wear, I wear whatever I'm comfortable in. (Amy, cis female, 30, 
Latino, bisexual) 
 
The most conscious decision is overall I try to not appear like a slob or 
anything too degenerate. Mostly because I don't think I'm that kind of person 
to begin with and I don't do anything too much. I might sort of fix my hair if it 
looks like really bad but that's about it. I don't wear makeup, dress up fancy or 
anything like that. Just like what I do in my daily life. (Lisa, cis female, 19, 
Asian, straight) 

 
Both participants acknowledged that there was a general trend to stereotype 

and objectify female streamers. Some women, either voluntarily or unwillingly, 
even complied with this trend by dressing revealingly. Without judging those who 
subjected to such a trend, these participants strongly advocated the idea of ‘being 
yourself’ in their streaming practices. For them, making free decisions on what to 
wear and how they looked represented how they controlled their own bodies and 
built images of strong female figures in live streaming. Some of them even used 
clothing as a weapon to demonstrate their belief on gender equality and resist 
viewers' inappropriate behaviors, as Heidi (cis female, 24, white, straight) 
described,  
 

I've worn like a very thin spaghetti strap dress on stream and I got comments 
and that was kind of annoying, but it didn't stop me from wearing a dress the 
next week. You know what? Fuck this person I'm going to wear it more.  

 
In contrast, LGBTQ streamers preferred to ‘dress up’ more than what they 

usually did under some circumstances. Bobby (cis male, 25, white, bisexual), who 
streamed on both his own channel as well as on a collective channel for gay 
streamers, revealed such an example: 
 

Usually if I'm having a stream on the [collective] channel, I want to put my 
best face forward so not only will I make sure I be showered, I'll be clean, I'll 
have some fun eccentric colorful clothes on. I'll also do my nails, I'll do my 
hair, um, sometimes I will even get it freshly dyed again so that it's a more 
vibrant color. It's unbelievable that all the people who are like part of that. I'm 
like 'whoa you guys are so cool,' and they look at me like 'you too' and 'you are 
awesome.' 



 

 

20 

 
In this example, Bobby carefully dressed up and did more preparation to ‘look 

good’ on purpose. Yet, dressing up was not an exaggeration or performance of his 
identity. Instead, it became a crucial mechanism to highlight the uniqueness of his 
sexual identity and present the best part of it to his community. For him, clothing 
and appearance not only reinforced his self-confidence but also made his peers, 
viewers, and community better recognize and appreciate his efforts. 

4.3 Challenges for Streamers' Presentations of Gender and Sexuality 

Thus far we have presented female and LGBTQ streamers' self-driven 
approach to present gender and sexuality as well as their key strategies to support 
such an approach. We now turn to the challenges that they encounter in this 
process. 

 

4.3.1 The Mismatch between Viewers' Expectations and Streamers' Aspirations 

One of the largest challenges that many female and LGBTQ streamers faced 
was the mismatch between viewers' expectations and their own aspirations to 
present their gender and sexuality. In particular, participants were worried about 
the tensions between a submissive, objectified, and hetero-normative gender role 
and their own will to advocate a more open, equal, and tolerable view of gender 
and sexuality through live streaming. Emma (cis female, 20, white, straight) 
described her concern:  
 

I myself and many other female streamers I know, don't like to dress all 
revealing. When people get used to the very sexualizing of streamers and find 
other streamers who don't dress all revealing for some reason, they will get 
really offended that, that female streamers don't dress more revealing. 

 
For her, the perceived stereotype of sexualized female streamers not only 

affected how female streamers behaved but also shaped the live streaming culture 
as a whole. In her opinion, on the one hand, these inappropriate expectations 
downgraded female and LGBTQ streamers to a marginalized and vulnerable 
position, making promoting gender equality and LGBTQ rights challenging. On 
the other hand, it led to a false impression and toxic attitude about gender roles 
(e.g., women being submissive and men being dominant as an acknowledged 
social norm), which hindered the formation of a healthy, positive, and supportive 
live streaming community.  

LGBTQ streamers also shared similar stories about how viewers had false or 
odd expectations for them, mainly due to the lack of knowledge about the 
LGBTQ community. For example, Andrew (cis male, age unknown, race 



 

 

21 

unknown, gay) highlighted one such example: the assumption that gay streamers 
were more open to flirting: 

 
People seem to feel that sexual come-ons and sexual dialogue is less taboo in 
the gay community than it is in other communities, like with heterosexual or 
anything like that. People are more just kind of flirtatious with gay streamers 
and they expect you to flirt back. Sometimes this is OK but sometimes not.  

 
Such a mismatch does not always lead to harassment, hate speech, or toxic 

comments. However, it is difficult for streamers to tackle this issue as the 
mismatch often leads to confusion and awkward interactions between streamers 
and viewers. For example, Deb (cis female, 41, white, straight) noted,  
 

What they see is that ok I am a woman and I am streaming and there is no one 
watching her so maybe she'll do stuff for me. So, I have been propositioned, I 
have been asked to give private shows, umm, yeah, they think because you are 
a woman and you are on Twitch so you are there to please them basically 
sometimes.  

 
And Daniel (cis male, 28, Latino, bisexual) added,  
 
There was a boy. I think he was younger, he wasn't really educated on how to 
handle certain situations. He was asking me if my stream was an okay place 
for straight people and I was like "yes that's perfectly fine," and I thought that's 
where it ended and he kept bringing up how his dad hated gay people and how 
he's perfect okay with gay people and he kind of kept making it a topic. I was 
not sure what he expected me to respond. 

 
In these cases, Deb (a straight cis female streamer) and Daniel (a LGBTQ 

streamer) were bothered by viewers' expectations for how they should behave as 
women or LGBTQ through live streaming. There was a demand for female 
streamers to follow male viewers' rules, entertain them, and always acknowledge 
male viewers' compliments; otherwise they were considered rude. There was also 
an expectation for LGBTQ streamers to accept flirting or reveal their 
vulnerability. In our data, our participants embraced a different perception for 
their gender roles and sexual identity and thus rejected such expectations. 

 

4.3.2 Tensions between Live Streaming Identity and Offline World Limitations 

Our participants also cited tensions between their presentations of gender and 
sexuality in live streaming and constraints in their offline lives as another primary 
challenge. While they were proud of what they represented, they were concerned 



 

 

22 

that these activities might undermine their offline lives due to the loose 
anonymity of live streaming platforms/practices (e.g., showing face/voice and 
intensive interaction with viewers). Bobby's (cis male, 25, white, bisexual) and 
Iris' (cis female, 32, white, straight) accounts demonstrate such a challenge:  

 
My day job is working at a conservative middle school as the tech person. I'm 
a public facing live streaming person that during the day also works with 13 
and 14-year-olds in mass and so there is a line. If I do something really 
obviously weird or too radical, I could totally lose my job. That makes me 
more careful. I am very proud of what I do and how I represent myself and 
proud of whom I represent. So I don't have any fears. I have no worries about 
it. But I was at one point worried about being too overtly queer on live 
streaming because I was afraid of being fired if my students or coworkers saw 
me online. (Bobby) 

 
I was at work and one of my co-workers came up to me and asked ‘...do you 
stream by any chance?’ And I was like "I do," but it's something I don't tend to 
advertise in my everyday life and they were like "I didn't know and one of 
your fans came in started talking about your stream." It was very embarrassing. 
(Iris) 
 
For Bobby, his digital representation on live streaming to promote his LGBTQ 

identity might very likely cause backfire to his offline career. Similarly, Iris 
shared the hesitance to let her offline social circle be aware of her digital presence 
on live streaming. For her, there was a fine line between her ‘everyday life’ and 
what she did on live streaming. Based on their stories, there seems to be a 
dilemma: as a ‘public facing’ live streamer, their online presence and streaming 
practices effectively facilitated their perceptions, understandings, and experiences 
of gender and sexuality, which they were very proud of. However, being ‘public 
facing’ may also be counterproductive to their offline life, as their workplaces 
may not always support their approach of understanding and presenting gender 
identity and sexual identity.  

In this sense, the high fidelity digital representation through live streaming 
explicitly or implicitly empowers many female and LGBTQ streamers online but 
may also make them more vulnerable in their offline lives. As a result, many 
streamers tended to set up a boundary between their live streaming practices and 
private life, in hopes of not letting their digital representation negatively affect 
their offline social relationships. 



 

 

23 

5 Discussion 
To answer our RQs, our findings have shown: 1) female and LGBTQ 

streamers in this study tended to adopt a less audience-oriented but more self-
driven approach to present their gender and sexuality, highlighting the negotiation 
of gender and sexuality in the context of content creation, live streaming as an 
official ‘ritual’ to acknowledge gender and sexuality in public, and advocating 
gender and sexuality as an online activism (RQ1); 2) they used unique strategies 
to support this self-driven approach for self-presentation, involving manipulating 
webcams and microphones and managing clothing and appearance (RQ2); and 3) 
they often faced various challenges in their identity practices, including the 
mismatch between viewers’ expectations and streamers’ aspiration as well as 
tensions between live streaming Identity and offline limitations (RQ3). Using our 
findings as a basis, we now discuss the implications of this work for 1) better 
understanding the interplay of live streaming technology, design, and 
functionality for nuanced presentations of identity; and 2) pointing to the 
increasing complexity of identity and identity-related practices through live 
streaming as a double-edged sword.    

5.1 The Interplay of Live Streaming Technology, Design, and 
Functionality for Gender and Sexual Representation 

In this paper, we build upon the existing work on the presentation of gender 
identity and sexual identity in online social spaces and endeavor to investigate 
how studying a unique and novel form of social interaction space (e.g., live 
streaming) may bring in new insights on more nuanced technology-supported 
presentations of identity. Some aspects of our findings are still consistent with 
results in prior CSCW studies on well-established online social spaces (e.g., 
social networking sites), such as the importance of disclosing gender and 
sexuality to increase marginalized users' visibility and socio-political significance 
(Blackwell et al., 2016; Carrasco and Kerne, 2018; Haimson 2015; Haimson et 
al., 2016).  

 However, one important highlight from our study is that our participants 
approached their gender and sexual representation as a self-driven reflection, 
negotiation, and empowerment. This differs from the performed and audience-
oriented (e.g., catering to viewers) aspect of gender and sexuality discussed in 
many previous studies (e.g., Bailey et al., 2013; Litt 2012; Litt and Hargittai, 
2016; Huh and Williams, 2010; Ducheneaut 2010). In our study, this particular 
population of streamers brought in a strong sense of their own identity and tried 
not to be influenced by their viewers. They perceived and practiced their identity 
was less collectively constructed or customized to their audience but more self-
driven. In this process, they 1) (re)affirmed their own understandings of 
themselves and (re)established their relationships to others and the world; and 2) 



 

 

24 

expressed and advocated their activist aspirations where female and LGBTQ 
streamers, who were often marginalized and vulnerable, actively pursued a more 
inclusive, tolerable, supportive, and friendly live streaming culture. 
 Yet this does not mean that our participants were unaware of, or did not 
care about, their audience. In fact, in contrast to traditional media such as 
Facebook and even newer media such as Instagram, Reddit, and Tumbler, they 
were more aware of their audience (who were watching them on live streaming) 
due to the financial incentives (e.g., viewers directly pay them for the content) 
and the enhanced presence of audience (e.g., real time and interactive chats). 
Nevertheless, many streamers, such as our participants, intentionally chose not to 
let the audience shape their digital representations and streaming practices. This 
special awareness affected their digital presentations in two ways: a) taking a 
more proactive attitude when disclosing their gender and sexual identity (e.g., as a 
‘ritual,’ or a ceremonial action) to officially announce who they are to the world 
in a high-fidelity way (showing face and voice) compared to Haimson's studies 
(Haimson 2015; Haimson et al., 2016); and b) further advocating their own 
understanding of gender and sexuality as a sociopolitical significant resistance to 
viewers' expectations, leading to the emerging online activism. 

How do they happen? The unique technological affordances of live streaming 
platforms play important role. In our study, participants often noted that live 
streaming challenged the traditional landscape of anonymous online social spaces 
due to its affordance of real time visual, audio, and textual communication 
between streamers and viewers. Compared to social networking sites, it is 
challenging and undesired to pursue multiplicity in self-presentation on live 
streaming by using multiple accounts of multi-level privacy setting (Dimicco and 
Millen, 2007; Farnham and Churchill, 2011). Live streaming platforms such as 
Twitch also do not provide access limitation settings as it is a public platform for 
openly sharing all streaming content. In this sense, it is crucial for streamers to 
maintain consistent and strong identities/accounts so they can attract a stable 
audience base. Such affordance tends to influence the interaction dynamics of live 
streaming in two ways. On the one hand, most viewers (audience) still keep being 
anonymous (e.g., only represented by a user ID). However, they can strengthen 
their online social presence and heighten streamers' awareness of them through 
live chat/comments and direct interaction with the streamer (e.g., gift giving), 
which may possibly affect the streamer's online behaviors by imposing their own 
understandings of how gender and sexuality should be represented. As some of 
our participants observed, some female streamers did change their behavior (e.g., 
dressing more revealing) to please their audience. Yet more importantly, on the 
other hand, streamers are less anonymous compared to many other online social 
spaces (e.g., Reddit) due to the public broadcast of live audio and video. This 
inevitably exposes part of their personal lives to strangers, which may lead to 
undesirable social consequences. 



 

 

25 

Nevertheless, many of our participants considered their digital representations 
through live streaming an empowerment rather than a threat: only they, not their 
viewers, were able to use webcam and microphone on live streaming. In this way, 
they could intentionally manipulate visual and audio cues as vehicles for 
expressing, affirming, and advocating their personal aspirations on gender and 
sexuality in a more comprehensive and vivid manner -- through their voice, 
appearance, clothing, actions on camera, and content of streaming. For them, 
everything they said, did, even how they looked on the camera could be a 
demonstration of agency -- the ability to control what (and how much) visual and 
audio information they presented and the resistance to viewers' inappropriate 
expectations on gender and sexuality.    

In addition, the unique power structure in live streaming may also contribute 
to streamers' self-driven approach to present gender and sexuality. As we 
mentioned earlier in this paper, content creation is the key to sustain the live 
streaming communities -- streamers create content; viewers watch content, may 
pay for it, and follow their favorite streamers; and streamers are encouraged to 
create more content. While viewers may seem to be the most powerful party (as 
consumers), our participants appeared to care more about their identity as their 
brand and keeping agency. Our findings show that streamers' identity and 
personality as a human being is essential to, sometimes more important than, the 
content they create, and can be the very reason why viewers come to their 
channel. In this sense, live streaming's extreme focus on content creation 
inexplicitly encourages streamers to pursue their understandings and 
interpretations of gender and sexuality at their own will. This in turn helps them 
build their unique personal brand and become more visible and identifiable. 
While this trend may not be true of all streamers, it was apparent among our 
participants. 
 Therefore, our findings highlight a highly dynamic, interactive, and 
multilayered self-presentation mechanism in a complex social interaction space: 
how to present gender and sexuality both shapes and is shaped by at least four 
layers: 1) the created content; 2) various expectations from viewers who consume 
and possibly pay for the created content; 3) streamers' strong perceptions and 
understandings of their own identity; and 4) the culture and values of the specific 
communities that the streamers belong to. To establish and practice their 
understandings of identity, streamers often need to carefully navigate through and 
work around these layers and act upon how different layers interact with one 
another. This nuanced mechanism points to the need for potential new lenses for 
the CSCW community to analyze technology-supported identity construction 
beyond the traditional selective self-presentation/performance and visibility. As 
we have shown, live streaming platforms seem to promote a self-driven approach 
to present gender and sexuality as a negotiation and navigation among content, 
viewers, streamers, and subculture, while self-presentation theories often focus 



 

 

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on performer and audience only. Likewise, in our study, seeking visibility was 
rarely a pre-existing goal for most female and LGBTQ streamers. Though their 
engagement with streaming and identity construction did sometimes increase the 
visibility and awareness eventually, it was challenging to understand their actions, 
motivations, and behavioral changes (e.g., from non-activist to somehow activist) 
through the lens of visibility alone.  

In this sense, a potential new lens beyond selective presentation/performance 
may focus on how gender identity and sexual identity is portrayed and 
experienced as a combination of 1) conscious and self-driven personal choices, 2) 
performer-audience interaction (audience-driven crafting and the resilience to 
such crafting), 3) how the content, either related or unrelated to identity, is 
created, and 4) specific subculture -- all in the context of technological 
affordances and power structure of the online social spaces. A potential new lens 
beyond visibility may not only explore marginalized users' control over their 
body, the disclosure of their identity, and the broader sociopolitical significance 
(e.g., presenting and disclosing identity as an online activism) but also emphasize 
the dynamic process to foster such visibility as well as how such users react to 
their unexpected role of educator in this process. 

5.2 A Double-Edged Sword? Gender and Sexual Presentations as 
Resilience 

For female and LGBTQ streamers, online harassment is common and can deter 
them from streaming. However, our participants somehow demonstrated a strong 
resilience towards misunderstandings and/or inappropriate expectations for their 
digital representations. While gender and sexuality online may often be 
considered socially constructed or (re)produced (Ducheneaut 2010; Yee et al., 
2011; Hardy and Lindtner, 2017), these participants exhibited a certain degree of 
resistance to the collective process of identity building and used their online 
representation as a means to insist and reinforce their own aspirations about 
gender and sexuality. 

In this study, it is somewhat unclear where exactly this resilience comes from 
or what factors lead to its emergence. Several participants discussed about how 
they have "thick skin" but they did not elaborate on how they developed this 
immunity, whether it was related to how they built their identity in other contexts 
and/or offline, or if this was something that their live streaming practices actively 
contributed to. However, a potential reason can be the subculture where such live 
streaming platforms are embedded. Live streaming platforms such as Twitch are 
still very prominent within the video game culture. In our study, at least 20 out of 
the 25 participants streamed gaming content as well. For these participants, 
embracing a gamer identity and a female/LGBTQ identity at the same time could 
be quite challenging (Paaßen et al., 2017; Shaw 2012). Operating identity in such 
overly masculine structures, which are often hostile towards underrepresented 



 

 

27 

groups such as women and LGBTQ, can serve as an adequate vehicle for the 
emergence of resilience as a counter-culture.  

What was clear was how aware these streamers were of the challenges and 
social consequences regarding their digital representations that live streaming 
affords. For them, digital presentations with regard to gender and/or sexuality 
through live streaming appeared to be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, 
they were equipped with an interactive, public, and high-fidelity system -- they 
could choose to take full advantage of the agency, support, and technology to 
present and affirm themselves. On the other hand, they also exposed themselves 
to a broader public and revealed a great amount of audio and visual cues about 
themselves and sometimes even about more emotional and intimate aspects of 
their lives. This not only makes them possibly vulnerable online but also may 
pose potential risks offline.  

In addition, as streamers found themselves being unintended educators and 
advocates, they sometimes found themselves questioning whether they knew 
enough about the topics to be educating others, which further complicated how 
they perceived and presented their own identity. For them, this self-driven 
approach to present gender and sexuality through live streaming was necessary to 
set up role models who further advocated gender equality and LGBTQ rights in 
nuanced and more powerful ways. However, it also further highlighted new 
challenges of breaking up stereotypes in the male-dominated 
online/streaming/gaming culture (Ahmadi et al., 2020; Prescott and Bogg, 2013), 
including tensions between being public figures online and having private lives 
offline, between engaging in emerging activism and maintaining healthy social 
circles, and between multimodal self-disclosing as agency and protecting 
necessary privacy. These challenges, therefore, raise new questions for CSCW 
researchers concerned about the increasing complexity of digital representation 
and its intertwining with offline social identities today. 

5.3 Limitations and Future Work 

It should be noted that this study has a few limitations. In recruiting, we 
specifically targeted female and LGBTQ streamers who displayed their gender 
identity and sexual identity as part of their streamer profile and who were willing 
to be interviewed, which may be why identity played such a strong role in their 
streaming practices. This self-selected sample may not represent the ideology and 
experiences of female and LGBTQ streamers as a whole. Second, there may also 
be a bias toward streamers who were active social media users outside of the 
streaming platforms due to our recruitment method. In future research, a variety 
of other data sources (e.g., logs, large-scale surveys, online chats in the live 
streams, focus group discussions) could be used as a way to reach a broader 
participant population and further validate findings from the interviews. In 
addition, as our participants vary in terms of the numbers of followers, popularity, 



 

 

28 

and age (e.g., from 19 to 52), future work could focus on further investigating 
how these factors affect streamers’ self-presentation practices and strategies with 
regard to gender and sexuality. For example, it may be more challenging for an 
older female streamer to present herself in a gaming-related area.    

Lastly, as with any other types of technology usage, it is challenging to 
untangle the direct effect of the technical system itself from other environmental 
and personal factors. Our snapshot of these streamers' perceptions and behaviors 
at one point in time may not be sufficient to understand how this timeframe lies in 
the context of their entire life. Yet, our empirical investigation points to the need 
for deeper longitudinal studies in the future to understand the causal relations 
between streamers' personal factors (e.g., motivations and personalities), social 
contexts, and their identity-related practices. More research is also needed to 
further explore how marginalized streamers such as women and LGBTQ combat 
and mitigate harassment and hostile environment in their identity construction 
practices. 

6 Conclusions 
The increasingly popular live stream platforms not only create new forms of 

social interaction experiences and human relationships but also shape how people 
perceive and define themselves online. In this paper, we have highlighted 
streamers' self-presentations with regard to gender and/or sexuality as emerging in 
a highly dynamic, interactive, and multilayered self-presentation mechanism of 
content, viewers, streamers, and subculture; demonstrated by controlling their 
own bodies; featuring an awareness of diverse audiences and the resistance to 
their expectations; and supported by the affordances and power structure of the 
specific online social space.  

To answer the research questions we raised at the beginning of this paper, 
live streaming, as a new and novel social interaction space, mediates a more self-
driven approach of self-presentation by highlighting the importance of affirmation 
and empowerment in this process. It also supports new phenomena/practices to 
manage gender and sexual identity by allowing users to manipulate visual and 
audio cues, clothing, and appearance for agency. We hope that these insights can 
contribute to potential new analytical lenses to investigate technology-supported 
identity construction and further understand the interplay between technology, 
design, and functionality in people’s digital representations.  



 

 

29 

7 Acknowledgments 
We thank our participants and the anonymous reviewers. This work was 
supported by the Mozilla Foundation and the National Science Foundation under 
award 1849718 and 1841354.  

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