A blog entitled “A Gay Girl in Damascus” by an Arab-American lesbian named Amina Arraf attracted quite a bit of attention with her accounts of living in the oppressive and dangerous society of Syria, chronicling too the “Arab Spring” of the populace rising up to demand freedom. The blog especially made headlines when a contributor claimed that Amina had been arrested by Syrian authorities. But now it turns out that the whole blog was a hoax and that the lesbian Arab was really a married man from Georgia named Tom McMaster.
The gay community, of course, was outraged. The lesbian blog Lez Get Real was especially indignant. But now it turns out that the woman who has been running that blog for 8 years is herself a man, Bill Graber, a 58-year-old married construction worker from Ohio.
I mean, men have a lot in common with lesbians–they are both attracted to women–but what is going on here?