Earlier this week, independent VTuber Rin Penrose announced the end of her partnership with gaming supplement company Gamer Supps. According to Penrose, her decision came “due to their associations with creators whose views strongly conflict with my own. As well as a lack of communication from the company on this issue.”
Penrose’s decision reflects one I’ve heard from sources across the English-speaking VTubing community: All is not well among Gamer Supps’ partnered content creators. Last month, I reported on controversial Gamer Supps partner, Kirsche. Who has a well-documented history of espousing racist and transphobic beliefs. Kirsche has since addressed our article, claiming she does not “condone or promote racism.” The VTuber was recently the subject of another article regarding her views on Shiloh Hendrix, a white woman who called a Black child the n-word. According to a clip of Kirsche, she does not believe Hendrix’s behavior is “okay.” However, Kirsche believes Hendrix’s racist actions are “just kinda the consequence of where we’re at now, unfortunately.” Claiming “there are people advocating for violence on both sides” of racial justice.
To be clear, Penrose did not specifically name any creator in her Gamer Supps announcement. Nor is this the only controversy plaguing the company, as anger has mounted over Gamer Supps’ partial owner, Sinder, a prominent VTuber accused of significantly mistreating her model artist and VTuber colleagues. Regardless, I suspect Penrose won’t be the last creator to cut ties with Gamer Supps in the weeks ahead. Penrose is a major creator in the VTubing space. I suspect her departure will embolden others to voice their displeasure with Gamer Supps’ radio silence on Kirsche’s comments. Or at the very least, they may be utterly alarmed by the kind of vitriol being posted under Penrose’s announcement tweet. The replies, to be blunt, are a dumpster fire.
One Twitter user said Penrose’s announcement was a “virtue signal” over Kirsche. Another demanded, “No politics, stop crying.” A third called Penrose a “pussy.” A fourth told Penrose she was “fucking stupid,” while a fifth described her as “firing yourself because you’re retarded.” A self-described “American Nationalist” declared, “the less of you virtue signaling retards, the better,” as VTubing “has no need of leftoid Marxist drivel who are obsessed with right-wingers.”
“We aren’t playing your gay little game anymore,” that user wrote. “Get lost.”
The quotetweets are no improvement. Despite the professional and diplomatic tone in Penrose’s statement, one user argued that the VTuber was “threatening companies to become more hostile and toxic and making people feel like they are walking on eggshells for expressing their opinion.” Another suggested Penrose wanted Gamer Supps to engage in “cancel culture.” A third criticized Penrose for “siding with the Twitter freaks” and declared her “FULLY RETARDED.”
“Bro look at the comments on this,” a concerned VTuber fan wrote, quotetweeting Penrose. “The VTuber scene has been absolutely infested with right-wing weirdos, actively defending a VTuber that spouts The Great Replacement Theory and is just bigoted from head to toe. What happened [to] the community I loved?”
‘VAllure’s ceo hates troons. they don’t care’
“I don’t want any trannies in VAllure,” a 4chan user wrote on April 4th, 2025. “I don’t want trannies to interact with the talents even, and no collabs either.”
There was a thread on 4chan’s “Virtual Youtuber” imageboard /vt/ dedicated to NSFW voice acting agency VAllure. That recurring thread, called “/vag/,” has since moved to one of 8chan’s successors. But before the transfer over, one anon espoused their intense feelings on trans talent in VAllure: No trans women. No trans people, period. Transgender talent could not be allowed in VAllure, as trans voice actors could contaminate the company’s talent. Besides, the anon wrote, “the audience broadly is not interested or is hostile to some degree.”
“I don’t care if they sound feminine, I don’t want them and knowing [they] would be in private DMs and hanging out with my Oshi,” that poster said; “Oshi” is a VTubing term used to refer to one’s favorite VTuber, their idol. “I don’t want my Oshi in a position to be compromised even if I know that she is wonderful and loyal because it makes me uncomfortable and insecure. Especially if it turns out the worst comes to pass and it was just an act or that they were a sexpest freak that tries to get into the talent’s panties.”
It may seem a bit peculiar to focus so heavily on one anon’s rant. But his anxiety over trans talent represents a wider sentiment of bigotry festering across VTubing, one that 4chan has played a welcome home to for quite some time. In June 2024, a lesbian anon requested ASMR audio suggestions from VAllure fans, stressing she is “not a tranny.” On May 2024, a VAllure fan demanded users stop talking about futanari content involving the agency’s talent, threatening to “shitpost a reply saying VAllure says no trans hires.” In January 2025, a user said VAllure would be “fine” as long as the company “doesn’t hire a tranny.” In April 2025, when one user warned VAllure “attracts a lot of envy and there’s tranny armies seething at them,” an anon responded that VAllure’s Stronny Cuttles was in 4chan’s corner.
“VAllure’s CEO hates troons,” that anon said of Cuttles. “They don’t care.”
‘a man so addicted to porn that he wants to mutilate himself to fulfill his fantasy’
In April 2025, I wrote a piece for VICE exploring VAllure’s controversial nature. The article discusses the lewdtuber agency’s comfort with lolicon talent performing explicit ASMR, VAllure’s self-imposed limitations on F4F (or female-for-female) content, and the company’s handling of trans talent. In short, VAllure did not give an answer during its 2024 Gen 1 auditions as to whether trans talent were able to apply as “female” applicants, sparking concern among potential trans applicants. The NSFW group finally broke its silence on the matter with Gen 2’s auditions, stating that anyone self-identifying as a woman was encouraged to audition. However, VAllure seemed to imply that trans talent had to pass for cisgender women with their voices, and some of the talent within the organization seemed to downplay the sensitive and serious nature of the question at hand.
VAllure remains the biggest English-language adult VTuber agency on the market. I do believe the company should be held to a higher standard on these topics. This is why I decided to write an article addressing, in my personal opinion, the biggest issues with the company. The article was received positively on Bluesky but negatively on Twitter, likely due to misplaced anxiety that I was criticizing Gen 1’s talent: Not the policies of VAllure’s management, which resulted in the F4F ban, mishandling of the trans talent question, and, of course, the decision to appeal to lolicon fans to begin with.
Still, accepting and respecting good-faith criticism is part of being a journalist. Criticism is understandable. More importantly, it’s worth stressing that plenty of good-faith criticism existed around my report. And unlike 4chan, I do not believe Cuttles or any other Gen 1 talent at VAllure hate trans people. I think there’s just a lot of insensitivity around trans talent from management.
However, shortly after I published my VAllure piece, I was hit with a tidal wave of transphobic abuse. Right-wing VTuber fans turned the article into a rallying point to attack me, personally, instead of discussing the merits of my criticism. One right-winger tweeted I was “just upset that VAllure doesn’t cater to her fetishistic trans and queer porn addictions.” A second used the slur “troon” and declared I was “mad normal people won’t pander.” Another said VICE “are disgusting closet diddlers who hate anything men like,” while a fourth even insulted you, dear reader, declaring our readership “drug-addicted, mentally-ill communists.”
On The Virtual Asylum, a forum dedicated to discussing “VTubers, VTuber drama, and V Tuber-adjacent things,” harassment continued. One user called me “a man so addicted to porn that he wants to mutilate himself to fulfill his fantasy.” Another said “YWNBAW,” meaning “you will never be a woman,” and told me to “cope, seethe, and dilate you fuck.” A third described me as a “pre-transition coomer tranny with as much charisma as a mealworm.” One poster even wrote two paragraphs about me, one with correct pronouns and one misgendering me, hiding the latter under a spoiler button reading “if male pronouns for Ana Valens will make you angrier.”
Over on 4chan’s /vt/, similar anti-trans rhetoric flooded the board. One user called me a “salty tranny,” while another declared I was trying to “sexpest the girls” behind VAllure. A third called me “a wannabe woman coping and seething hard.” While an additional anon said VAllure is “kinda based but I’m feeling they’ll cave in at some point.” One user, a self-described “tranny,” said I am a “single retard” and “there are so many of these loud obnoxious faggots who make the rest of us look bad.” That trans poster went on to call me a “bitch who needs her shit kicked in because she wants to sexpest the girls.”
Sexually harassing lies, half-truths, and rumors became a popular way to target me after the VAllure article. On The Virtual Asylum, a poster called me a “troon” who “shoved a dildo up their ass that would rumble whenever they got grabbed/pushed on Fall Guys and played with a bunch of kids.” This is completely made up. Half a decade ago, I wrote an article for Daily Dot in which I discussed putting a vibrator against the middle of my chest while playing Fall Guys with a group of unidentified players. The vibrator was set to rumble when any controller vibration occurred, including grabbing other players.
“Two or three times at the very start, I grabbed another player while testing the vibration effects, until minutes into the stream I realized I was grabbing another person, so I stopped,” I wrote in 2020. An archived link of the Daily Dot article shows the sex toy awkwardly between my breasts. The toy cannot be inserted anally due to its shape.
It’s clear why far-right VTuber fans would spin these tall tales. They allow anti-trans bigots to paint me as a sexual predator and a pedophile, and thus discredit my writing by character assassination. There’s also, I presume, the thrill of choosing a target to sexually harass “justifiably.” There’s a lewd and lurid character to the lie, allowing harassers to simultaneously condemn me while fantasizing about my body being sexually penetrated by a vibrating butt plug.
I suspect lurid fantasies of anger, jealousy, and envy also permeate, culminating in a strange sexual obsession with me as a trans critic. This exact same right-winger also spread the rumor that I criticized VAllure because I applied for its Gen 1 auditions and was rejected, concluding “they don’t pass and thus was the reason why they got rejected.” This erroneous claim spread like wildfire across the English VTubing community. Even though I directly stated in 2024 that I refused to audition for VAllure given concerns with the agency’s radio silence on trans talent.
Animosity has since festered across VTubing. Even those who believe I should not have transphobia sent my way still demand I lose my job and tell me to “go fuck yourself in a bad way,” continuing the lewd nature of the harassment.
The mask has slipped off in vtubing
There’s no doubt in my mind that this backlash, tinged in the belief that I am a degenerate transbian with an axe to grind, inspired more right-wing VTubers and VTuber fans to engage in transphobia. One right-winger called VAllure “based” because, in his words, “trans women [are] not welcome unless they live as and sound like women.” Another also called VAllure “based” and argued there is “zero monetary reason” the company “should ever consider tanking their business to appeal to less than 1% of the population.”
“How has society regressed so far that now people are unironically asking ‘what does it mean to sound like a woman,’” a third VTuber fan concluded.
Anxiety over the writer turned into anxiety over trans politics. A Christian VTuber declared “VICE doesn’t know what a female is” and “a female is a biological woman.” (Said VTuber previously harassed Roblox players by saying “being gay is a sin.”) VTuber podcast Under the Tea, popular with right-wing fans, hosted an episode on the VAllure article filled with chatters laundering homophobic and transphobic beliefs. One user claimed “butch lesbians are basically female drag queens.” Another said the article featured “stupid questions that only a trans could come up with.” A third stated of me, “this person is a degenerate.” One chatter added, “because it’s a trans person they only think about themselves when talking about taste and fetish.”
“Would it be mean for me to say VAllure doesn’t want to chance having autogynephilicas?” one chat user wrote. Referencing the transmisogynistic belief that transgender lesbians are men attracted to the idea of being, and being with, another woman. The aforementioned right-winger who claimed I “shoved a dildo” up my ass while playing Fall Guys also appeared in the stream, arguing that trans people “only try to invade space they are not welcome in to try to make people bend over for you.” He commented heavily throughout the stream. Expressing his eagerness to create a Bluesky account, as there is “good content to be farmed from there.” The implication is obvious as to his intentions.
Kirsche also fired a signal flare for her own community. Attracting a transphobic feeding frenzy in her chat while discussing the VAllure article. One user declared, “If you’re a voice actor, no one wants to hear your husky baritone.” Another stated, “female could include trans men, I suppose, but clearly not trans women.” A third argued, “queer women don’t exist,” to which another replied, “sadly people who call themselves queer do exist.” Another joked, “Imagine if they just played the Trump, ‘you’ll never be a woman’ speech.” A fifth said, “Seeing men in female avatars is repulsive.” While a sixth speculated VAllure “probably can’t say they don’t want trans outright.” A seventh quipped about wanting an “F4F domestic violence ASMR.”
“I didn’t think gender discrimination for hiring applies to the entertainment field,” a Kirsche fan argued. Another said I was an example of “a classic tale of AGP extremist throws tantrum.” Here, “AGP” means “autogynephile,” once again used to describe trans women as hysterical degenerates obsessed with women’s bodies.
In one instance, Kirsche cited a website with my deadname, displaying it to her entire chat. This also included the incorrect pronouns.
As I mentioned above, I don’t have an innate problem with Kirsche and other VTubers criticizing my work. But when a community is filled with transphobia, and criticism just so happens to line up with a community’s anti-trans bias? When it’s done in a way to reinforce harassment already happening within the community? That’s different. I have no patience for that. Nor should you, if you’re also a victim of this kind of behavior in VTubing.
Why did criticism of my article take on such a loaded political nature? Why did so many right-wingers and VTubers attack my character and usher in a larger conversation on trans people’s right to exist in VTubing spaces? Whether it’s Kirsche, Under the Tea, or a bizarrely aggressive right-wing Christian VTuber, these groups are mobilizing their fan bases for more than just criticism. They are using their communities to foster and embrace beliefs like “queer women don’t exist,” trans women aren’t women, and that trans people “only try to invade space they are not welcome in.” Criticism shifted from the article to the person, and from the person to the symbol she represented: Transness, queerness, lesbianism. “Degeneracy.”
‘This is a contrived campaign started by a tranny (((journalist)))’
This is exactly why Rin Penrose was met with so much hostility. Yes, partly because of pre-existing tension that dated back to the VAllure article. But also because her decision to cut ties with Gamer Supps was read as intensely political, as a commentary on a larger culture war happening in VTubing. If this environment isn’t confronted, the harassment of myself and others will only get worse. One person called for Penrose to “end her affiliation with life due to its association with creators whose views strongly conflict with her own.”
“This is a contrived campaign started by a tranny (((journalist))) named ana valens that already flopped when she got some random faggot to disavow kirsche on stream but then when she tried to take a lap about it he told her to fuck off,” one /vt/ user wrote, using parenthesis to imply I am Jewish. “The tranny manager who is fucking (((asexual))) Rin Penrose then decided to bite the retard bullet.”
The English VTubing community is at a crossroads. Do we allow this sort of rhetoric to continue? Do we allow the far-right to fester in our communities? To hang out in our streams? To spread lewd and lurid lies about marginalized people, everywhere they go? Holding management, talent, and agencies hostage to their whims?
I find the answer shockingly easy here. Agencies can express their full-throated support for trans viewers. VTubers can actively purge bigots from their communities. But time is ticking. It’s clear, based on the existence of everything from /vt/ to The Virtual Asylum, that this problem is getting worse. Not better. And harassment of marginalized fans, creators, and journalists will not go away until agencies and VTubers set the standard.
Enough is enough. Bigotry has no place in VTubing. Let’s end this problem before it gets worse.
The post VTubing Has an Elephant in the Room: Bigotry appeared first on VICE.
