Arisce Wanzer (@ariscetocrat) goes live on TikTok while she does her makeup. It’s an easy way for her to connect with some of her online followers, a network she’s built up to about 150,000 people over a decade of living and working in Los Angeles. She talks about her day, a phone call she had with her mom, and how excited she is about the event she’s hosting tonight. But after the broadcast, she receives a notification from TikTok regarding the replay. Wanzer’s live video had been flagged for having sexual content, a violation of the app’s community guidelines.
“Nothing I said had to do with sex,” she says. Wanzer appealed the decision and was told that mention of the word “trans” was the reason for the flag. “Queer trans content is under review right now as sexual content. Just being trans is ‘sexual content.’ I was like, what? This is literally erasing us from public life.”
Wanzer’s censorship summarizes the plight many queer creators currently experience. For entertainment and hospitality professionals — industries that attract LGBTQ+ people in higher numbers — online
