New York-based web designer Kevin Garvey of 664design.com and harderfasterrocks.com maintained a fake transsexual website called boy2woman.com until late 2006. The site allegedly featured his girlfreind "Nancy" and sold subscriptions to a pornographic members-only area.

The information below was researched and reported by a reader and is maintained here for historical purposes. This page is a mirror of original research done by the author of boy2woman.com hoax:

http://www.geocities.com/boy2womanhoax/

For additional information, please see the updated tsroadmap page on boy2woman.

Internet fakes: boy2woman.com

Original from Jan 23 2005

Introduction

The well-respected Transsexual Road Map www.tsroadmap.com site has preserved a small archive of meticulously researched internet TS fakes. This page is an independent contribution to that effort.

The goal of this page is to expose the www.boy2woman.com web site as a hoax, halt the abuse of copyrighted and/or personal content, prevent people from contributing money in response to the fabricated story, and prevent people from accepting the idealized story of the young transsexual woman named "Nancy" and the accompanying medical descriptions as fact. The flawless and relatively pain free transformation and misleading medical descriptions are a disservice to those struggling with true gender identity issues.

The site boy2woman.com is analyzed and judged as a fake due to widespread use of elements common to "transsexual transformation" fantasies and need to use doctored imagery. This analysis presents ample prima facia evidence that demonstrates the site is fraudulent.

Site Ownership

A whois lookup of public domain information reveals the owner of the boy2woman.com domain as follows:

Kevin Garvey (GATDYNVUZO)
PO Box 754
Yonkers, NY 10705
US
Phone: 999-999-99
Fax: 999-999-99
Domain Name: BOY2WOMAN.COM 
Administrative Contact :
Garvey, Kevin
(KLHMNFNNXI)
kg664@EARTHLINK.NET
PO Box 754
Yonkers, NY 10705
US
Phone: 914-969-6661
Technical Contact :
Franklin, Sheryl
(FS168-ORG)
fcshostmaster@DOMAINREGISTER.COM
PMB 307, 518 Kimberton Road
Phoenixville, PA 19460
US
Phone: 610-792-4597
Fax: (508) 526-7876
Record expires on 22-Dec-2005
Record created on 22-Dec-200
Database last updated on 30-Jun-2004
Domain servers in listed order:	Manage DNS
NS1.HOSTSAVE.COM 	207.150.196.199
NS2.HOSTSAVE.COM 	207.150.197.103

His online resume at devbistro.com/developers/id/8daysawk (reproduced below) shows ample web and Photoshop skills needed to achieve the fakery described below. The connection to the same Mr. Garvey is made via the identical email address kg664@earthlink.net present in the boy2woman.com domain registration and the resume.

Analysis

The intended audience is suspicious

The header of the boy2woman.com home page contains the following code:

The meta tag name/content pair is not displayed in browsers. Instead, it contains information meant to populate search engines in the hopes that people searching for those keywords will be given a link to the page in question. Note the frequent use of transsexual and typically pornographic keywords in the meta tag (the pejorative "he-she" and the insider terms "shemale" and "ladyboy" which are widely used in transsexual pornography). This indicates that the author hopes to appear in web searches of people who are typically engaged in searches for pornographic content. In spite of assertions that she is trying to "help" other transsexuals, the absence of any serious terms typically associated with true issues facing transsexuals such as legal issues, specific hormone treatments, surgical procedures, etc. indicate that there is no honest effort at targeting serious transsexuals. Instead, these keywords clearly indicate an interest in reinforcing the attention of those with sexual interests.

The biography reads like a TS transformation novel

The biography is rife with clichéd references drawn straight from any transformation fantasy.

• "obvious female tendencies in my mannerisms and my voice"
• "diagnosed with a small case of "lack of male love" from my father"
• "always had narrower shoulders and fuller hips for a male. (And quite possibly the world's smallest feet!)"
• "used all the breast enhancement, estrogen and milk producing tablets I could find"
• "went under the knife to get breast implants"

By themselves, such neutral details are inconclusive. However, the recurrence of the "breast implant" theme in the story and in the meta tag is suspicious. The breast fixation is further reinforced by the mention of "milk producing tablets", whatever those might be. Coupled with the pornographic terms, one could conclude that these details are consistent with someone engaged in a male-to-female transsexual transformation fantasy.

Subscription mechanism connects Mr. Garvey to boy2woman

The boy2woman.com website presents a link that allows a visitor to make a payment via PayPal for exclusive access to the boy2woman.com member area. The implication is clear that one is purchasing access to typical "fan" services such as photos, newsletters, etc. In addition, the availability of member-only photo galleries are mentioned in the January News page.

However, the "Join" link makes a curious departure to Mr. Garvey's Earthlink site (see the status bar at the bottom of the captured window). At the very least, he provides services to a domain engaged in copyright infringement and sales by misrepresentation. At worst, he is the origin of the fabricated story of "Nancy".

Even more interesting is the presence of a confusing description of what is being purchased (note the use of the word "donate" to protect against any implied exchange of money for products or services). The terms "Exclusive Members Club" and "TV Times Newsletter" would seem to pertain to the boy2woman.com TG-themed services. However, "industry insider information" and "top industry professionals" would seem to relate to information that might be sold in the context of web design services.

In any event, Mr. Garvey appears to be actively involved in the collection of money, assuming that the PayPal buttons are actually functional. They have not been verified as actually resulting in charges, but they do bring forth a legitimate PayPal payment form at the domain paypal.com.

In addition, the assertion that the buyer receives "1 month FREE" is a bait-and-switch because at checkout, the buyer is being charged $30 for 6 months at the individual $5/month rate and receiving 6 months. The buyer is not receiving a free 7th month or a discounted rate of $25.

Subscriptions are for content already available from other sources

A "subscription preview" page was captured by Google in early 2004. This page has apparently been removed from the boy2woman website. The sample content that was offered was taken from other porn sites and being resold under cover of a "donation". For example, the first sample image in the page is Barbara Belluci, a Brazilian TS porn star, who is unlikely to have any legitimate business connection with boy2woman. The full content, including videos and other bonuses, is readily available from the original providers for a legitimate subscription price, or for free from usenet newsgroups. Pay some more and you'll get all the content straight from the source, or save your money and get some of the popular images for free from the newsgroups.

Photographic analysis

The remaining section analyzes photographs in the boy2woman gallery.

General dissimilarities in the photographs

While some of the photos seemingly are of the same person, many obviously are not. In the she_he.jpg picture, note the heavy underlid bags, high forehead, lack of a widow's peak, and heavy browbone. Nearly all of these features are lacking in the other pictures. (It goes without saying that the she_he.jpg picture is simply a bizarre picture to include in the gallery and one can surmise that it fits into a "what an amazing transformation" fantasy.) The remaining pictures selected from the gallery show that few of the people in these pictures seem to be the same. Hairline shapes and forehead height are significantly different, chins and jawlines differ, the high point of the cheeks moves around, and eyebrow shapes differ more than would be expected. In particular, look at the 2 photos with the men which were allegedly taken in September 2003 and November 2003. In these, the horizontal alignment of the top row of teeth take a turn for the worse in November. Nancy makes brief mention of a series of facial feminization surgeries in her biography but this is a ridiculous explanation. Though it may sow uncertainty in the casual visitor, it fails to explain the radical differences in the photos.

Wholesale use of other's professional photographs

The glamour photograph is clearly described as having been taken in the post-college years in the 1990's using a cheap camera ("in a kitchen"). These claims are demonstrably false. This particular photo was most likely lifted from a professional studio photographer and carelessly reused with little or no modification.

In doing so, a DigiMarc digital watermark remains resident in the file's comments. However, the watermark is not detected, either because it has expired or the file has been modified.

Further analysis shows that the image was not taken on a cheap camera, nor was it taken in the mid 1990's. The binary headers of the image clearly show that the image was shot on a Canon EOS D30, on March 4, 2001. The Canon EOS D30 is a professional digital camera that first hit the market in late 2000 with a far-from-cheap street price of $3000. This is an interesting piece of evidence because it has been on the site for a number of years and is apparently not a fabricated photo. Given the longevity of the photo and the claim that it is an original, there is no way Nancy can blame its presence on an oversight or on Photoshop-happy webmaster. The statement goes directly to the credibility of the statements of Nancy herself and everything in the statement is false.

Fraudulent boy2woman t-shirt photos

The original versions of these photos have been located at sportsbybrooks.com. The photos belong to a California-based professional in the sports media business. He travels with a bevy of models who accompany him at his appearances. The original images are identical to Nancy's in every way, except they contain the real model's face, they are more authentic, clearer, do not contain the doctored boy2woman.com logo, and are of trusted pedigree because these models appear regularly in other photos.

Click for original
Click for original

The cut and paste mouth

The mouths in the Kim Devine and millerlite images are cut-and-paste mirror images. In addition, note how the forehead length and chin length are different despite the identical mouth sizes.

Fraudulent photo with Kim Devine

The picture with Kim Devine, a TS porn star, is fake. The pictures are self-explanatory. This photo has also been on the website for a few years. The FAQ used to contain a statement from Nancy that people shouldn't impugn her integrity by suggesting the Kim Devine photo is a fake. At face value, such a passionate rebuttal might temporarily quell some questions, but in the face of this original picture (from www.bobstgirls.com), little more needs to be said.

Closing comment

While stretching of the truth and outright fiction is commonplace on the internet, a line is crossed when the presentation is so polished so as to deliberately mislead in a subject area of significant personal importance and profound medical and emotional consequences. In the case of boy2woman.com, this website goes well beyond that line and falls squarely in an illegal and unethical domain because of the abuse of personal and copyrighted images and the collection of money under false pretenses.

Comments may be sent to boy2womanhoax at yahoo dot com.

Page capture

For documentation purposes, several of the analyzed photos are captured here in the context in which they originally appeared on the boy2woman website on January 19, 2005. Experience has shown that the boy2woman.com site is rapidly modified when the owner is aware that content owners have discovered abuse of their content.

See also boy2woman hoax mirror of 27 August 2005.