Men Posing as Lesbians on Blogs Make International News

1.  Tom MacMaster, a married 40-year-old heterosexual American man, Middle East peace activist and student from Georgia living in Edinburgh, Scotland, maintained a fictional identity and a popular blog written in the style of a memoir or journal of a Syrian, lesbian, Muslim, revolutionary using pictures he'd taken from the Facebook account of a London woman.  Tom MacMaster called himself Amina Abdullah Arraf and posted not only on the Amina Arraf biographical blog, A Gay Girl in Damascus, but also on several other sites, including Graber's Lez Get Real site and dating sites, the latter of which he said he used to practice his literary voice, despite entering into actual relationships with people with promises to meet in real life.  The blog and the character become so popular that MacMaster appears to have felt he was losing control of the situation, and the character he had operated for some six years, and defaulted to a plan forum and virtual world dwellers know all too well...he tried to kill her off.

The problem with such a plan, again, as internet denizens know, is that it tends to make both the sincerely invested and the jadedly curious...investigate.  In this instance, however, MacMaster had made Amina Arraf such a compelling figure of political strife across multiple websites that the beginning of her demise, a possible capture by one of "18 police formations" or "multiple different party militias and gangs" got such a strong, compassionate and engaged reaction that the U.S. State Department and multiple major news organizations got involved in an attempt to find and rescue the nonexistent woman.  The attention and resources of a curious group of internetters, the State Department and major new organizations led to the revelation that Arraf is actually written and operated by MacMaster.

Tom MacMaster

It also appears that before the scandal broke, MacMaster had planned to write a book as Arraf.  A link to a draft of the "memoir" is included below.  He may still do so, but the story will be...a little different.

From the Washington Post:

"'Look, if I was the genius who had pulled this off, I would say, ‘Yeah,’ and write a book,' he said Friday, reached in Istanbul, where he is vacationing with his wife, a graduate student working on a PhD in international relations."

From the Washington Post:

"In a series of phone calls throughout the weekend, MacMaster first denied any connection to the site. On early Monday morning MacMaster ,in a phone call from his vacation in Istanbul, finally talked about why he did it, whether his wife knew and what he regrets."

"The biggest reason was that I found that when I argued, debated and made points that I knew to be factually sound on issues relating to Middle East by myself, I got pushback."

"I had written a couple of fantasy novels. My experience has been with my fiction that if I can get five people to read it and finish it, I’m doing good. I wasn’t expecting it to get like this."

"When all the attention came, I thought here is an opportunity to put forward some things I thought were important: issues around Middle East conflict, religious subjects. However, I also had a real ego boost in thinking that, 'I’m good. I’m smart. These journalists don’t realize I’m punking them.'"

"I was vain enough to think that even if it wasn’t my name, I was seeing my words in print."

From NPR:

"He wrote a back story for her and started writing a novel based on her. As a way to flesh the character out, he created profiles of Amina on different social networking sites to create a 'depth of character.'"

2 & 3.  Bill Graber, 58, is a retired Ohio military man and construction worker. He used his wife's name and a photo of her driver's license to maintain a fictional identity and a popular news site blog about and for lesbians.  One day after MacMaster revealed he was not a Syrian lesbian, but a man pretending to be one, Graber, under pressure, reluctantly confessed he was not an American lesbian, but a man pretending to be one.  His site, Lez Get Real:  A Gay Girl's View on The World, was founded in 2008.  He positioned himself as the founder and editor of the site and called himself Paula Brooks, his wife's name.  His wife was not aware that her name was being used for this purpose.  Paula Brooks was the founder and editor of Lez Get Real, a PhD from Bryn Mawr with three master's degrees, an employee at the Smithsonian Institution, connected to NBC via relatives who are NBC staffers, an activist, a mother of twins, the widow of a wife who had been in the Navy and had died of breast cancer, and deaf...which is why she could not use the phone or VOIP to talk to anyone, though her "father," Bill occasionally would on her behalf.  Graber's identity became a source of suspicion and therefore investigation after MacMaster revealed the truth about his identity.  MacMaster had posted as Amina Arraf on Graber's Lez Get Real site before starting his own blog as Amina Arraf.

Bill Graber

From The Washington Post:

"Over the weekend, as journalists, bloggers and fans of Amina hunted for clues to the identity behind the blog, Brooks came under review as a possible suspect. Liz Henry, a Web producer at BlogHer.com, questioned Brooks’s involvement with Amina, as Amina had started to write about the Syrian uprising on Lez Get Real before starting her own blog." 

"MacMaster came forward Sunday to admit that he was behind the persona of Amina, but questions still remained about Brooks."

Reporters at The Washington Post contacted Graber who remained steadfast in his denials for a while, but then apparently caved after being repeatedly questioned by multiple people in multiple locations as the truth-seeking frenzy grew.

"Brooks had told reporters at The Washington Post that she could only speak on the phone through her father because she was deaf. She provided a photograph of her license as proof of her identity, which showed a woman named Paula Brooks."

"Brooks, who is deaf, said, 'I don’t have a voice in real life. Lez Get Real is my face. It says what I wish I could say if I had a real voice, and Amina seems to be taking that from me.'"

"On Monday, we continued to question her identity. We spoke to the man who identified himself as her father, who finally admitted after numerous telephone conversations: “I am Paula Brooks.” That man turned out to be Bill Graber."

Turns out Graber was all set to quietly retire Brooks and his role in the Lez Get Real  site as soon as September even before the scandal broke.  He will do so now and much differently than he had originally planned to.

Paula Brooks

Bridgette LaVictoire

4 & 5.  Linda LaVictoire, who writes on Lez Get Real using her maiden name Linda Carbonell, is the new co-owner and editor of Lez Get Real.  She is currently listed as the site's Managing Editor.  Carbonell says in her letter to the readers of Lez Get Real that ownership of the site is being turned over to her and a transgender lesbian with mild agoraphobia and acute anxiety disorder named Bridgette, who, interestingly enough, appears to go by the full name of  Bridgette P. LaVictoire. Linda is Bridgette's mother.

From The Washington Post:

"Already reeling from the news of MacMaster’s hoax, one of Graber’s contributors at Lez Get Real Linda LaVictoire, said, 'I was completely taken in; I have been completely taken in for three years.' The 62 year old lives in Vermont and writes on the site under her maiden name of Linda Carbonell."

"Graber hoped the truth of his identity would not hurt the site he had built or set back the causes of the gay and lesbian community. He said he plans to give the site to LaVictoire to run."

From Carbonell's letter to Lez Get Real's readers:

"The past three days have been devastating for all of us on LezGetReal. 'Paula Brooks' has been a part of our lives for three years now. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around this. It has been especially hard for Bridgette because theirs was a very good friendship. Ownership of the site is being turned over to me and Bridgette."

From The Bilerico Project:

"Despite the lies of Bill Graber, LaVictoire and Carbonell are real. LaVictoire is a 36-year-old, lesbian transgender woman and full-time graduate student at Goddard College. She had the first of her gender change surgeries in August, and soon, she will amend her birth certificate to reflect her true gender. Carbonell is LaVictoire's 62-year-old, heterosexual mother who works part-time providing services for older residents in an apartment building."

Melanie Nathan

6.  Melanie Nathan is a blogger, an advocate and a confirmed real-life lesbian who was part of the Lez Get Real  administration and writing team.  She was among the first to question the Amina Araff story.

7.  Julie Phineas, co-founder, administrator and writer for  Lez Get Real  who was duped by Brooks.  Phineas has other websites including lesbianmommy.com, guerillalesbians.com and juliephineas.com

8.  Renee Gannon, founder of the blog Lesbiatopia who also worked with Graber/Brooks and felt deceived.

Britta Froelicher

9.  Britta Froelicher, wife of MacMasters, studying for her PhD in Syrian economic development, originally and briefly thought to be the writer of Arraf, was completely blindsided by the revelations.

From the Washington Post:

"Her husband, Tom MacMaster, also denied any involvement — both to The Post and to his wife. Over the weekend, as the calls from The Post continued to come in, she became increasingly worried, losing sleep and becoming confused as to why we kept investigating her life."

"Froelicher also heard a new admission Monday: MacMaster had posed as a lesbian on dating sites and communicated with women flirtatiously by instant messenger. One woman, Sandra Bagaria, had thought she and Amina were in a virtual relationship and had been planning to meet the fictional Amina in Italy in July."

"'Furious does not begin to describe my feelings,' Froelicher said about that aspect of MacMaster’s elaborate online hoax. MacMaster said he had engaged in these conversations to practice his literary voice, which Froelicher said she believes. 'You might think it’s naive of me to believe that.'"

"She also said she understood the outrage from the readers. 'I totally understand that people are angry. They have every right to be angry. They were misled.'"

Jelena Lecic

10.  Jelena Lecic, the London woman whose pictures were taken from her private Facebook account and used my MacMaster, the face of Amina Arraf, in other words.  None too happy about it, as you might imagine.


Both men claimed to have done the wrong thing for the right reasons.  Both men also claim to be deeply sorry about having deceived and hurt so many people for so long in an effort to do what they believed to be was some good. Both men said they did not feel they would be taken seriously in their efforts to do the kind of good they wanted to do if they were perceived as being the white, male Americans that they really are.

"Graber said he started the site to write about gay issues after seeing the mistreatment of close friends who were a lesbian couple. He said the site was 'done with the best of intentions.' As a former Air Force pilot, he also said he used the site to argue in favor of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal."

"'I didn’t start this with my name because... I thought people wouldn’t take it seriously, me being a straight man,' he said."

11.  Sandra Bagaria, the Canadian lesbian who thought for six months that she was having a real relationship with a real woman on the internet, Arraf.  They had made plans to meet in real life in Italy.

12.  Andy Carvin of NPR, one of the first journalists to uncover the fraud.


Both men chatted and flirted with each other never knowing the other was a male until both revealed themselves when the situation blew up on them after MacMaster tried to kill off Arraf.  Both men are reportedly in the company of wives who are said to be furious.

"He felt secure that no one would discover his true identity until the story of Amina started to unravel. He said his connection to Amina was purely coincidental and started when Amina commented on a post on the Lez Get Real site in February. It 'was a major sock-puppet hoax crash into a major sock-puppet hoax.'"

"In the guise of Paula Brooks, Graber corresponded online with Tom MacMaster, thinking he was writing to Amina Arraf. Amina often flirted with Brooks, neither of the men realizing the other was pretending to be a lesbian."

See this news report:

Read more here:

1. ‘Paula Brooks,’ editor of ‘Lez Get Real,’ also a man
2.   http://lezgetreal.com/
3.  Armina Arraf's Blog:  http://damascusgaygirl.blogspot.com/
4.  "To Our Readers" a letter from Linda S. Carbonell, Managing Editor of Lez Get Real, and another one here too:  http://lezgetreal.com/2011/06/my-apology-to-our-readers-for-amina-abdallah-and-paula-brooks-redux/comment-page-1/
5.  Minal Hajratwala's Blog:  http://www.minalhajratwala.com/2011/06/a-thousand-sighs-memoir-of-a-hoax/
6.  Melanie Nathan's Blog:  http://oblogdeeoblogda.wordpress.com/
7. Melanie Nathan's Final Weeks at Fraudulent 'Lez Get Real':  http://www.bilerico.com/2011/06/melanie_nathans_intense_final_weeks_at_fraudulent.php
8. Lez Get Real? Inside the Imagined Life of 'Paula Brooks':  http://www.bilerico.com/2011/06/lez_get_real_inside_the_imagined_life_of_paula_bro.php?utm_source=front_page&utm_medium=top_story&utm_campaign=Top_Story
9.  Article about the Arraf Hoax on The Electronic Intifada:  http://electronicintifada.net/blog/ali-abunimah/new-evidence-about-amina-gay-girl-damascus-hoax
10.  Washington Post story about Britta Froelicher:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/britta-froelicher-wife-of-a-gay-girl-in-damascus-talks-about-being-caught-in-her-husbands-hurricane/2011/06/13/AGPJrETH_blog.html
11. A Facebook group calling to “Free Amina Arraf” with more than 15,000 members:  https://www.facebook.com/FreeAminaArraf?sk=wall
12.  BBC story and video about the hoax and the identity of the London woman, Jelena Lecic, whose pictures were used:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/9509289.stm
13.  Chasing Amina on Liz Henry's blog:  http://bookmaniac.org/chasing-amina/
14:  Moxie Bird "detective work" blog post:  http://www.moxiebird.com/2011/06/another-blogging-hoax-revealed-with-old-fashioned-detective-work.html
15.  Amina Arraf's "memoir" on pdf:  http://www.minalhajratwala.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/A-Thousand-Sighs-Part-I.pdf
16.  http://gaysifamily.com/2011/06/13/minal-hajratwala-on-her-interactions-with-fake-syrian-lesbian-blogger/
17. Are All Gay Girls Secretly Men?: http://blog.outeralliance.org/archives/851
18. The real world of gay girls in Damascus:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/15/gay-girl-damascus-syrian-lesbians
19. Washington Post story, ‘A Gay Girl in Damascus’ comes clean:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-gay-girl-in-damascus-comes-clean/2011/06/12/AGkyH0RH_story.html
20.  Cached view of damascusgaygirl.
21.  Washington Post story Tom MacMaster, the man behind ‘A Gay Girl in Damascus:’ ‘I didn’t expect the story to get so big':  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/tom-macmaster-the-man-behind-a-gay-girl-in-damascus-i-didnt-expect-the-story-to-get-so-big/2011/06/13/AGhnHiSH_blog.html
22. Washington Post story ‘A Gay Girl in Damascus’ hoax: Friends, supporters, Syrian and LGBT community hurt and angry:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/a-gay-girl-in-damascus-hoax-friends-supporters-syrian-and-lgbt-community-hurt-and-angry/2011/06/13/AGDTu6SH_blog.html
23.  NPR's story Man Behind Syrian Blogger Hoax: Something 'Innocent ... Got Out Of Hand':  http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/06/14/137148644/man-behind-syrian-blogger-hoax-something-innocent-got-out-of-hand
24.  NPR's story Another Supposedly Lesbian Blogger Turns Out To Be A Man:  http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/06/14/137171287/another-supposedly-lesbian-blogger-turns-out-to-be-a-man
25. The Wishful Writer blog story about Paula Brooks:  http://thewishfulwriter.blogspot.com/2011/06/real-paula-brooks.html
26.  Lesbiatopia about Paula Brooks:  http://www.lesbiatopia.com/2011/06/man-who-claimed-to-be-paula-brooks.html
27.  Dyana Bagby on gavoice.com:  http://www.thegavoice.com/index.php/blog/culture/2817-straight-men-posing-as-lesbian-bloggers-can-choke-on-their-keyboards
28.  CanuckJacq on gaelick.com:  http://www.gaelick.com/2011/06/our-friend-paula-brooks/16220/#tab=tab1
29.  Julie Phineas' lesbianmommy.com blog:  http://www.lesbianmommy.com/2011/06/paula-brooks-exposed-as-bill-graber.html
30.  Graber/Brooks blog:  http://queen-of-the-surf-pirates.blogspot.com/
31. 'Lez Get Real' Successors Clarify Time with 'Paula Brooks': http://www.bilerico.com/2011/06/lez_get_real_successors_clarify_relationships_with.php?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BilericoProject+%28The+
32.  Listening To Your Inner Voice by Bridgette LaVictoire:  http://themagazineofyoga.com/blog/2011/03/09/practices-bridgette-p-lavictoire/
33.  MacMaster apology letter to La Stampa reporter:  http://www.lastampa.it/_web/CMSTP/tmplrubriche/giornalisti/hrubrica.asp?ID_blog=258
34.  Painful Doubts:  http://bookmaniac.org/painful-doubts-about-amina/
35.  Renee Gannon's story  on Lesbiatopia:  http://www.lesbiatopia.com/2011/06/man-who-claimed-to-be-paula-brooks.html   
36.  colleen Criss' gotvirtual forum thread on the subject:  http://gotvirtual.net/community/threads/girls-treated-as-commodities-child-prostitution-trial-told-aka-lias-propaganda-thread.1933/
37.  Ishtara's blog post on the subject:  http://ishyscoherentrants.blogspot.com/2011/06/there-are-no-lesbians-on-internet.html
38.  Carter-Madhu's SLU thread on the subject:  http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/politics-religion-society/60339-gay-girl-damascus-blogger-kidnapped.html