Framing Keffals as the Face of Trans Resistance Has Allowed Her Racism To Stay Unchallenged

In summer 2022, Twitch streamer Clara Sorrenti (a.k.a. Keffals) was featured on the Washington Post (and other places) as a doxxing and swatting campaign coordinated against her on anonymous forum Kiwi Farms (notorious for such things) got increasingly dangerous. Bigots shared her home address and even a hotel she took shelter in. This backlash came because Sorrenti dedicated several hours a day to streaming commentary on anti-trans and LGBTQ+ laws. (And ratioing transphobes on Twitter.)

While many people aware of the situation gave sympathy to her, a small murmur of critics expressed frustration (often cryptically) that the violence towards Sorrenti positioned her as a martyr. They alleged that she frequently attacked POC in a way that fell just short of doxxing. Sorrenti and her fans accused these critics of trying sow distrust on behalf of Kiwi Farms. However, since then she’s been caught doing just that and more.

Sorrenti’s racism (especially towards Black and Asian people), ableism, and even transphobia could fill a book. However, it’s more useful to dive into just a few examples and show how she dual wields the language of social justice and the alt-right to cause harm on the very people she claims to be an advocate for—that the accusations of false flags trying to break solidarity between marginalized groups is nothing compared to her actions. Meanwhile, Sorrenti masks her own biotgry under the guise of edgy humor for progressive causes and de-radicalizing the youth.

The best place to start is the recent harassment of writer and anti-rape activist Roslyn Talusan, not just because it shows a lot of the same patterns of behavior altogether, but because this came after she got treatment for substance abuse in the spring of this year. After weeks of public, hateful tirades on social media at the start of the year, Sorrenti pulled a Roseanne Barr by claiming her behavior was the result of a cocaine addiction. A few weeks after logging back online, she came swinging with the same vile bigotry, this time directed towards Talusan.

Popularizing racist dog whistles

As feminist pop culture critic online, Talusan has been harassed over the years for a number of issues. However, the one Sorrenti decided to wade back into as part of her comeback tour from drug treatment is among the worst. In 2021, Talusan made a passing comment on X (formerly Twitter) about a white chef’s book about Asian cuisine. Paired with screenshots of the chef and her book, Talusan wrote, “Why did a white woman write a cookbook about dumplings and noodles?” People who roll their eyes at the phrases “cultural appropriation” and “systemic racism in publishing” attacked Talusan online. Unbeknownst to Talusan at the time, this included Sorrenti.

Talusan’s tweet was passed around racist forums, and people made up lies about the author’s background to prop up against Talusan’s query. They pried into her personal life in a way not unlike many other writers of color have faced when expressing an opinion online that challenges white supremacy. In addition to making the book she criticized into a bestseller on Amazon, they used phrases relating to noodles as a dog whistle against her like “noodles are tasty.” This allowed them to harass her in plain sight while seemingly making an innocuous, reasonable statement. It’s not unlike people commenting “well well well” under posts of POC, religious minorities, and LGBTQ+ people participating in mundane activities linked to a stereotypes.

A year later, Talusan saw that Sorrenti had joined the dogpiling with the new context of who she is. Talusan screencapped (not tagging or quote tweeting) Sorrenti’s noodles tweet with the caption “qwhite inchresting indeed.” Sorrenti found this tweet in less than a day. Under the delusion that Talusan was looking for attention, Sorrenti decided to make Talusan’s life a living hell once more. From June 2022 to now, Sorrenti posted a variation of that dog whistle dozens of times—not including times during live broadcasts. This includes reigniting and popularizing variations of the phrase on Twitter alternative Bluesky. Her fans made graphics and emotes for her stream, making the racist harassment of Talusan a community in-joke just like the others who began this two years earlier. Some, like Sorrenti, are the same people.

After a year of people calling out Sorrenti’s racism for referring to an Asian woman as “noodles” her friend and fellow white woman Brianna Wu used the “pass” theory with Sorrenti. Wu claimed that it wasn’t racist to called Talusan “noodles” because her Asian husband said it was okay. (In September 2023, Sorrenti would return the favor after leaked DMs showed Wu’s unfettered transphobia.) Because this was during the first wave of people leaving X, Sorrenti brought this with her to Bluesky. At one point, she posted a variation of “noodles are tasty” a few times a day. This began in early July (at least) and continued through August, though her fans still do it.

Encouraging people to fake marginalization and weaponizing her own to shut down dissent

While “noodlegate” was among the longest-running of Sorrenti’s extended racist campaigns, it’s not the biggest this year. Her toxic behavior in the first half of Black History Month (in the U.S. and Canada) tired out many trans creators trying to call her in. After taking down Kiwi Farms, Sorrenti encouraged people to play Hogwarts Legacy. Among other reasons, the HL boycott’s goal was to prevent gamers from financially benefiting well-documented transphobe and Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling.

The Canadian streamer repeatedly “gave” non-trans people a “pass” to play on the basis that she’s transgender. Extending “passes” is a common Sorrenti deflection against criticism. Around this time, people asked her to stop saying the r-slur, but Sorrenti claimed it was okay because she’s autistic. Trans and autistic creator Jessie Earl (a.k.a. Jessie Gender) spoke out against Sorrenti for both undermining the boycott and being ableist.

Sorrenti responded by implying that Earl was contributing to transphobia by focusing on Hogwarts Legacy—that trans people complaining about the game were making trans people look irrational and like killjoys. This was not only victim blaming, but ignored the years of work Earl had done to dissect transphobic rhetoric and media with incredible patience, empathy, and humor. Sorrenti called her and others “wokescolds” and “tenderqueers.” Synonymous with “SJW” and similar terms, both words are popular among the online alt-right. Additionally, Sorrenti encouraged viewers during a livestream to use diverse profile pictures to drown out criticism.

We spreading misinfo? Yeah, I’m doing gay ops on tenderqueers by encouraging my followers to make picrew accounts and infiltrate tenderqueer twitter. Once they catch wind of the plan that we’re using picrews to infiltrate tenderqueer twitter they’ll all become incredibly suspicious of picrews and they’ll eat each other alive… Does it matter which picrew? No, just us a random one, but the more diverse the better. Like make it a Black butch lesbian…

Sorrenti would later claim this was caused by drugs and was being taken out of context. This livestream has since been unlisted or deleted. When I watched the whole VOD months ago, it didn’t make any difference. She still encouraged people to fake identities to undercut criticism against her. Also, this is on trend with her and others of the “dirtbag left” trivializing people who speak candidly from a place of marginalization, as if that’s wrong.

This is the identical attitude of people who appropriated and lambast identity politics. (Just like the word “woke.”) Using this to score social points shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how transphobia connects to other issues. Sorrenti fails to see how white supremacy is the root of transphobia, anti-Blackness, queerphobia, etc. Or maybe she doesn’t and thinks bigotry is fine if it’s ironic.

Claiming one type of bigotry is okay to fight against another

A week later, Sorrenti showed lack of understanding again following the murder of Brianna Ghey. Two teens were accused of stabbing the 16-year-old transgender girl in Britain on February 11. Following Ghey’s death, various press chose to deadname and misgender her. Between this and popularization of the hashtag in 2020, people began to speak about her under #SayHerName (and “Rest in Power“). After the 2015 so-called suicide of Sandra Bland, activists and the African American Policy Forum used the slogan to call attention to the murder of cis and trans Black women (usually) by police. Because this history is so public, many pushed back against the adoption of this phrase for Brianna Ghey, a white teen.

By February 12, #DignityForBrianna took off as a more appropriate and specific marker to speak up about the transphobia Ghey continued to face in death. Right on cue, Sorrenti defended the original hashtag usage by implying Black people and transphobes were gatekeeping language. Her fans shared screenshots from a racist message board claiming the discourse was manufactured by transphobes to cause division. However, these images were dated five days after the discourse began on February 15. This false flag claim was used to invalidate the thousands of people that real issue with the hashtag’s misappropriation. It also fed into the tension between LGBTQ+ people and cis people of color highlighted (and worsened) by transphobes like Dave Chapelle.

Comparing this messaging to her criticism of the HL boycott, Sorrenti claimed that the focus should be on the material consequences of transphobia (like Ghey’s death) and not the language around it. Sorrenti used this same defense with her fellow edgelord, “leftist” streamer Ian Kochinski (a.k.a. Vaush). Trans creators Kat Blaque and Natalie Wynn (a.k.a. Contrapoints) called Kochinski out when he used ironic, tactical misogyny towards J.K. Rowling. Instead of recognizing how misogyny goes hand-in-hand with transphobia and that this would feed into the myth that trans people (and their supporters) are inherently misogynistic, Kochinski and Sorrenti claimed it was okay because Rowling deserves it. That’s not how that works.

The justification yet again fails to recognize how these systems of oppression intersect and come from the same root. This is why many have accused Sorrenti of continuing the long tradition of white feminism, albeit through an edgy misogynist lens.

Why it took so long for people to call Keffals out

There’s several reasons it has taken people a long time to see the harm Sorrenti inflicts and the bigotry she fosters. Many took Sorrenti’s word that the criticism came from transphobic forums. After all, the doxxing Sorrenti faced was real and not an anomaly. Others like the edginess and see it as an acceptable coping mechanism against the bigotry she receives. Each time they choose to give Sorrenti the benefit of the doubt over mounting examples they choose to value her whiteness over the safety of marginalized people. This disappointingly includes important activists keeping up with anti-trans legislation like Erin Reed and Alejandra Caraballo.

Even when people recognize Sorrenti’s racism and misogyny, many still hesitate to call her out. Some see the trauma faced by marginalizing others as the price and process of de-radicalizing former “incels,” etc. It’s not like she’s the only person (or even the worst) to do this among her peers. She’s never had a Nick Fuentes on her broadcast multiple times. However, others don’t feel like marginalized people should have to put up with 4chan humor, but do live in fear. They don’t want the attention of a community nearly indistinguishable from those thriving at the height of Gamergate.

A few people have spent time explaining how Sorrenti and her peers uphold white supremacy while claiming to fight it. People like Talusan, Earl, Soul Bunni, Foreign Man in a Foreign Land, and others. In each of those cases, they’ve faced harassment and content farming from Sorrenti and others. She uses the same tactics mentioned above and more, while feigning playing defense. A single tweet or video results in hours of videos and streams. Fans flood their communities demanding you to “debate” their fave. They want to see the spectacle and performance of watching their fave “destroy” someone with “facts and logic” like they used to with the Daily Wire hosts.

(featured image: screencap)