About Grooby
Grooby is a company founded in 1996 and based in Los Angeles, CA, producing transgender online adult entertainment. It established itself as one of the pioneer companies of online adult transgender entertainment with its website Shemale Yum*, “the first transsexual pay site with original content.”
The company owns a number of transsexual adult websites and produces its own DVD line as well as having other interests in forums, blogs, and social networking within the trans niche genre including the annual Transgender Erotica Awards hosted in Hollywood, CA.
It has been called as “one of the most popular adult industry companies in the world” and according to AVN Business, the company “has established itself among the Net’s foremost purveyors of transgender erotica.”
History/Milestones
Grooby traces its roots back to websites started in 1996 in the UK by owner Steven Grooby, a film school graduate. The most prominent of them was his transgender site, Shemale Yum, which became an Adult Verification site and eventually a member site.
Other websites followed including Ladyboy-Ladyboy in 1998 which was the first website to specifically go to Thailand to photograph ladyboys and number of other sites featuring Brazilian, Black, Japanese and Canadian trans women.
In 2006 the company celebrated its 10 year anniversary, which included a party thrown by Allanah Starr in New York City. For the company’s 20th anniversary in 2016, Grooby hosted an invite-only party at the Bardot in Hollywood, CA.
Grooby produces over 2000 photo/video sets a year for web-only release and nearly 50 DVD releases. In late 2009, the company relocated its offices from Honolulu to Los Angeles, California.
In 2016, Grooby started a non-profit organization called TAIF (Trans Adult Industry Foundation) with board members Buck Angel, Steven Grooby, and Kristel Penn.
In 2017, Grooby took over the editorial content for the longest running trans magazine in existence, Transformation. The publication prints quarterly with Kristel Penn (Grooby’s Marketing and Editorial Director) as its editor and Hanna Rodgers as their publisher.
**note: In August 2017, Shemale Yum was rebranded as GroobyGirls.com. You can read more about it here in a conversation between Steven Grooby and Kristel Penn.
NOTABLE ARTICLES
- How Mainstream Porn is Finally Making Room for Trans Performers (Glamour, 2017)
- This Leading Trans Porn Company is Wiping Slurs from Its Site (Vice, 2017)
- How Sex-Positive Transgender Porn Is Helping People (The Independent, 2017)
GROOBY FEATURED IN THE NEWS
