Gender-bending on the Internet: The Ballad of Stephanie & Bobby

Stephanie was in distress.

The loss of her parents in an fiery car accident left her an orphan at a young age. She was raised by her paternal grandfather, whose chronic ailments brought on many bills she was struggling to assist with. At the young age of 20, she had already become a mother and a wife, unhappily married to her military husband who was on his way to his 3rd tour of duty in Iraq. She was glad he was gone, because when her husband stayed at home he was abusive to her and the kids, forcing her to participate in acts of swinging and had, in her own words, “messed her mind up so much“.

As a stay-at-home mother of two, she cared for her little ones by undertaking online jobs: quick and dirty web design projects, programming of small portals, database creation and reselling domains of questionable value and of adult nature. Her friends of the same age went out partying, studied at college and held steady jobs. She was in a tight place, battling life’s unfortunate surprises, doing the best she could – when disaster hit again. Her oldest son, a beautiful boy with curly hair and big brown eyes, got infected with staph – and after developing high fever, he quietly passed away – on the last day of winter. He would have been 3 years old a few weeks later.

Stephanie was devastated. She had to arrange for her son’s funeral, pay the bills and care for her other child, while her husband was stationed thousands of miles away, battling insurgents in Baghdad. Her grandfather was bed-ridden, his mobility lost after suffering several strokes. She had nowhere to turn to and time was running short.

Nowhere – except for her online group of associates, forum participants and other potential buyers of her assets and services. It was 4am when Stephanie posted online how her little child had passed away and coyly asked for support for his loss. She uploaded a picture of the little child, a smiling little angel who could not possibly foresee his untimely demise when the photo was being taken.

The response was overwhelming. From behind keyboards and screens located all over the world, out came messages of support and soothing words of admiration for her courage. Some people offered to send flowers, others pledged money in a fund that’d be created for the surviving child. Others sent virtual *hugs* and electronic postcards, feeling deeply touched by her loss.

Stephanie was crying tears of joy. The funeral would take place two days later, so she had to get some money fast. She listed 300 domains for sale – about a tenth of her portfolio – her online signature tagging each of her posts as a reminder of her family’s tragedy. The sales thread received hundreds of visitors in the first few hours and Stephanie was almost certain now that God had not abandoned her.

She logged out, turned the computer off and went to wash up in the bathroom. Her big, six-foot tall frame and burly physique was staring at her from across the mirror. She straightened her thick black mustache, well-groomed for the past 10 years to compensate for the loss of her cranial hair, and while standing up she took a much-needed piss.

Bobby flushed the toilet and could not hold back a belch of relief.

He adjusted his pants and checked out his teeth in the mirror. At the age of 53, he had to be careful with his physical condition; he was not a young pup any more. Having spent several years of his youth in prison for fraud, grand larceny and indecent exposure, he had to be careful when talking about himself. As a convicted felon, he knew that he faced criminal charges if he stole the identity of another person to conduct his business, so he, like another Norman Bates at the “Psycho” hotel, had invented a grand-daughter; the playful, sassy and disaster-prone Stephanie whose problems seemed to increasingly step out of the darkest pages of “Les Miserables“.

Back at the online forum, the sales thread was still going strong the next morning. Bobby smiled, looked outside the window and sat down to enjoy a hearty breakfast. Life was finally good.

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This story is based on actual events. The Internet offers the opportunity to unscrupulous individuals to devise and assume new identities, forging a lifetime of accomplishments and even change their own gender in order to suit their goals. One has to be particularly careful when conducting interpersonal or business transactions with people that inexplicably flaunt their gender or ailments and who cannot provide verifiable information about themselves. To gain one’s trust is easy, especially when people view such pleas of despair with a nature of goodwill. Regardless of financial gains, faking one’s identity can be a devastating event that affects the impersonator, their immediate circle of friends and family – while ruining the faith and trust of the community he or she reaches out to. And it’s also punishable by law.