In 2022, Sorrenti became the subject of a loosely-organized harassment campaign that she has attributed to
Kiwi Farms,[9] with
internet trolls using her
deadname while filing false police reports,
pizza bombing her residence, and organizing a number of
swattings.
Sorrenti began streaming on Twitch playing video games, but switched to politics after a wave of anti-trans legislation was introduced in state legislatures in 2021 and 2022. She spoke out against
Texas GovernorGreg Abbott when he instructed Texas state agencies to treat gender-affirming medical treatments, such as
puberty blockers or
hormone treatments, for
transgender youths as child abuse. Speaking on an Alabama law making it a felony to provide gender-affirming care for those under 18, Sorrenti said, "They literally want these kids to fucking kill themselves."[3][6][7][8] In April 2022, she raised US$205,000 for the Campaign for Southern Equality to protect transgender youth.[3] A month later, she called attention to a
VOD of a 16-year-old trans Twitch streamer who was taken into
foster care after police conducted a
wellness check.[22][23][24] She has also criticized Florida's
Parental Rights in Education act and the false claim shared by online figures such as
Infowars and United States
CongressmanPaul Gosar that the
Uvalde shooter was transgender on stream.[13] She was profiled by
Taylor Lorenz in The Washington Post in June 2022.[3][25] Lorenz described Sorrenti as "part of a new class of stars who have abandoned the platform's traditional game-stream format to talk about news and politics" and described her Twitch stream as "one of the few media outlets where viewers can hear the news from a trans person."[3][25]
In July 2022 her
Twitch account was suspended for 28 days (reduced to 14) for "repeated hateful slurs or symbols" that featured on her stream
thumbnail. Sorrenti said that the slurs in question were images of past harassment directed against her and that she had been banned "for openly talking about the abuse [she receives]". She moved to
YouTube to stream during the ban.[13][26]
Sorrenti joined Twitter in December 2020, and amassed over 100,000 followers on the platform. Sorrenti is also known for "
ratioing" Twitter personalities,[27] and has been in online disputes with former Twitch streamer
Destiny, as well other public figures, including
Tim Pool,
Candace Owens,
Lauren Southern, and
J. K. Rowling.[3]
In a 2023 Progressive Victory livestream, Sorrenti and fellow streamers
Destiny, Emma Vigeland, and
Vaush interviewed
U.S. RepresentativeRo Khanna about various topics, including the importance of youth political participation and ways to push
progressive political sentiment.[28][29]
Harassment campaigns
August 2022 swatting incident
On August 5, 2022, Sorrenti was
swatted and arrested after an email was sent to members of the
London, Ontario city council claiming to be Sorrenti with an intent to kill her mother and members of the
London City Council. The incident, that she believes to be a
hate crime, led to computers and phones being confiscated by police. She said the
London Police Service had used her
deadname during the arrest, as well as in the
wellness check on her mother.[14][27][30] Sorrenti claimed the police, talking to Sorrenti's mother,
misgendered Sorrenti by referring to her as her mother's "son".[31][32] According to the London police, any use of Sorrenti's former legal name was based on records of prior interactions with the police and not deliberate disrespect.[33]CBC News reported that the chief of the police department said he will review how she was treated by officers.[34] The swatting came after another earlier attempt had taken place through the
Toronto Police Service; according to Sorrenti, the London Police Service was not aware of this previous attempt due to lack of correspondence with the Toronto Police Service.[35][36] The London Police Service drafted reforms for its treatment of transgender suspects after the incident.[37]
Following the incident, Sorrenti told
Global News that "I'm not backing down. I know that the work I do is incredibly valuable, and... I have [trans] people almost every day saying they came out to their families because of me".[35]Jagmeet Singh, leader of the New Democratic Party, responded to the situation in a tweet saying "Trans folk, and especially trans activists, deserve the freedom to make themselves heard. Not to be doxed and swatted, arrested at gunpoint and deadnamed repeatedly. No one deserves this."[38]
In December 2022, an internal investigation by the London Police Service into the August swatting incident found no evidence Sorrenti had been deadnamed audibly by officers, with the LPS stating they have the video and audio evidence to confirm this.[39][40]
Conflict with Kiwi Farms
Following the swatting, Sorrenti also set up a
GoFundMe fundraiser with the aim of funding a move and a lawsuit,[41][38] and said that she aimed to continue to stream.[4] Sorrenti later tweeted that the GoFundMe had had its funds frozen after being mass reported.[42] Nonetheless, she was subsequently able to move to a hotel. On August 17, 2022, the location of the hotel was posted online and the hotel was
inundated with pizza deliveries made by
trolls using Sorrenti's deadname. Sorrenti believes that the location of the hotel was discovered after she had posted a picture on her
Discord server that inadvertently revealed the patterned bedsheets used by the hotel, allowing internet trolls to cross-reference the sheets with those in local hotels. London Police Service confirmed that they are investigating this and also a separate
doxxing attempt. Following this, Sorrenti moved to a new temporary location and has said that she intends to move weekly until she finds a permanent residence.[43][44] She also said that she intended to host a protest against
Kiwi Farms, a site which Sorrenti alleged played a role in her swatting, outside of the
San Francisco offices of
Cloudflare, a company that provided services to the forum.[45]
Following continued harassment, including her
Uber account being hacked into to send her food, Sorrenti announced that she would be leaving Canada and moving to an undisclosed location in
Europe in one or two months.[46] She was once again doxxed in another swatting attempt after relocating to
Belfast, Northern Ireland.[47][48] On September 3, 2022, pressure on Cloudflare in response to the harassment campaign resulted in the company terminating services to the Kiwi Farms website,[49] as the firm considered the forum activity to be increasingly dangerous.[50] The site was briefly accessible only through
Tor. Sorrenti declared victory on September 5, saying the campaign had more than succeeded in its aim to shut Kiwi Farms down.[51][52] On September 6, 2022, The Daily Dot confirmed that VanwaTech was providing content delivery network services to Kiwi Farms, hence bringing it back online.[53][54]
^Grayson, Nathan (December 16, 2021).
"Twitch suspension of Hasan Piker sparks debate over what qualifies as racist language". The Washington Post.
Archived from the original on December 17, 2021. Retrieved June 26, 2022. 'It's honestly rare for me to go live on Twitch without at least one person coming into my chat to harass me for being a trans person,' a streamer who goes by the handle 'Keffals' said on Twitter, 'but the hateful conduct that Twitch seems to care about more is whether people use goofy insults...'
^Tayler, Emily (November 16, 2018).
"We Won't Be Erased London: Rally for trans and intersex rights". The Gazette • Western University's Student Newspaper.
Archived from the original on June 28, 2022. Retrieved June 27, 2022. Trans rights march (Photo 4): Clara Sorrenti, the organizer of the Young Communist League London, Nov. 4, 2018.