The star of a massively popular viral 'ginger people have souls' meme has revealed that she is now a woman after undergoing five months of hormone replacement therapy.

CopperCab, an internet personality whose real name was Michael Kittrell, became famous in a matter of hours after posting a filmed response to an episode of South Park in which Cartman claims red-headed people don't have souls.

Kitrell then became the target of a long bullying campaign from online trolls, which had the ironic effect of boosting his popularity as millions tuned in to watch his increasingly irate rants about everything from Gangam Style to "white male privilege".

Read more: Shock jock Gavin McInnes makes transsexual star of 'gingers have souls' meme CRY during harrowing showdown

4 CopperCab is now Claire Cab, her Twitter account announced last night

4 Claire Cab intends to continue her YouTube career and spread her message of feminism and 'social justice'

But late last night, CopperCab's Twitter account announced that her name will now be Claire Cab.

She wrote: "I am so sick and f*** tired of hiding behind characters, I stopped enjoying YouTube years ago, I just want to be myself."

We spoke to Claire after her announcement to ask how life would change.

She told The Sun Online: "In some ways my life will be drastically different but I will adapt as I have always learned to.

"I went from an angry kid bullied at school by a handful to a kid being laughed at by millions across the world.

"What's a few more people staring at me on the street gonna really do?"

In the six years since the "ginger have souls" meme surged to popularity, Claire has filmed a number of videos which angrily respond to her haters - who appear to enjoy tormenting her and getting a reaction.

They pored over her videos to extract the parts they found amusing, which were then turned into looping gifs like the one below.

She added: "I have been bullied online for the past 6 years so I've grown somewhat of a thicker skin, like, it takes more to piss me off... but I still have a hot head admittedly. I stopped making videos for a number of reasons but one of those is that I was tired of seeing what I felt was a character on the screen."

Claire recently began speaking out on feminist issues, earning her the praise of some woman and the mocking vilification of many men.

"I've always felt odd about myself and I had trouble explaining it," she continued.

"I never really felt right in boys clothing, and my parents would have me in sports but I never really wanted to play. I kind of always knew in some form but I just wasn't sure what it was until I became slightly older."

After her announcement quickly popped up to mock Claire, who became something of a whipping boy for some members of the right wing online media after declaring himself a feminist.

The abuse Claire received reached its peak when she appeared on an online television show run by Gavin McInnes, co-founder of Vice Media.

In a brutal and sometimes harrowing confrontation, McInnes labelled Kitrell a "sub-fag" and made shocking digs about her dead mother.

4 Claire Cab responds to Gavin McInnes' tweet about her sex change

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"Gavin turned out to be a real a****** like I predicted and he slightly triggered me," Claire added.

She vowed to continue her mission to bring feminism to the internet and told us her zeal for social justice was the thing which brought her out of retirement.

"I was honestly frustrated with how women were being treated on the internet: it's like the entire f******* gender is being turned into some sort of meme and I wasn't happy with that.

"I was going to quit doing videos until I decided NO enough is enough."

Sick trolls have already started mocking the YouTuber formerly known as CopperCab after her revelation.

"RIP Coppercab's penis," one bully wrote on Twitter.

The YouTuber will make her first appearance as Claire in a video released later this week which is likely to receive millions of views.

But it also likely to result in a torrent of abuse and nastiness aimed at Claire, who was declared the third most bullied person on the internet.