Clara Sorrenti (a.k.a Keffals) has had a target on her back for being an outspoken trans activist for a while now, and this week, it came under fire in a big way.
Though the latest swatting attempt against the trans Twitch streamer was the most traumatic yet, she says it’s not the last of her by far.
“I’m not backing down,” the streamer told Global News CA. “I know that the work I do is incredibly valuable, and thousands of trans people told me that I have people almost every day saying they came out to their families because of me.”
To help with moving costs and replacing all the electronics that police “collected” from the house (including all of her work equipment and the harddrive with her boyfriend’s Master’s thesis assets), Sorrenti posted a GoFundMe.
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In just one day, supporters helped her raise over $70,000 dollars.
Related: This popular trans Twitch streamer was just banned for an awful reason
This isn’t the first swat attempt against Sorrenti. A similar threat was made under her name to Toronto officials recently, but Detective Sergeant Graham Gibson allegedly acknowledged it as swatting and dismissed it.
Instead, the London, Ontario police department still hasn’t recognized her arrest as such, nor is it clear that they have any intention of going after the criminal who emailed in the fake threat in the first place.
This arrest comes from the same department Sorrenti’s brother reached out to months ago to have their family put on a “no swatting” list. The office refused.
“[We were] treated like we were wearing tin foil hats and completely dismissed,” the streamer says. “They told my brother things would be fine. They were wrong.”
Related: Twitch streamer Blizzbear on community, hate-raids, and his biggest inspirations
Throughout the incident, the streamer was constantly referred to and addressed as her deadname (including her last name given at birth, which she had legally changed over a decade ago.)
One officer even apparently asked if she was “a ‘she’ or a man” and requested a “trans 101” course from Sorrenti as she sat in the back of the police car.
In a statement on the officers’ transphobia, police said they would be “reviewing the occurrence“.
Between being effectively threatened with an assault weapon, arrested, robbed of her personal items, and humiliatingly misgendered through it all, it seems that the actions of London, Ontario police have been even more traumatic for her than the actions of the swatter themselves.
As awful as what she’s been through was, Sorrenti says transphobes won’t shut her up that easy.
“If they want me to stop, the next time they better manipulate the police into pulling the trigger.”
Watch Sorrenti’s recounting of events and stirring call to action here:
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