The mysterious identity
Remember the blog Gay Girl in Damascus? By a Syrian lesbian blogger? Who turned out to be a straight married guy in Edinburgh? That was 2011.
The mysterious identity of a young Arab lesbian blogger who was apparently kidnapped last week in Syria has been revealed conclusively to be a hoax. The blogs were written not by a gay girl in Damascus, but a middle-aged American man based in Scotland.
Tom MacMaster, a 40-year-old Middle East activist studying for a masters at Edinburgh University, posted an update declaring that, rather than a 35-year-old feminist and lesbian called Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari, he was “the sole author of all posts on this blog”.
…
The admission – confirmed in an email to the Guardian from MacMaster’s wife – apparently ends a mystery that has convulsed parts of the internet for almost a week. But it provoked a furious response from those who had supported the blogger’s campaign, with some in the Syrian gay community saying he had risked their safety and seriously harmed their cause.
The blog A Gay Girl in Damascus was launched in February, purportedly to explain “what it’s like to be a lesbian here”, and gathered a growing following as Syria’s popular uprising gained momentum in recent months. Amina described participating in street protests, carrying out furtive lesbian romances and eventually being forced into hiding after security forces came to her home to arrest her.
Then, on 6 June, a post appeared in the name of Amina’s cousin “Rania O Ismail”, who said the blogger had been snatched by armed men on a Damascus street.
Then there was a campaign to get her out…and then people started asking questions. Lots of questions. IP addresses were traced, photos were traced, everything led to MacMaster.
So he confessed, and said something about the pervasiveness of “liberal Orientalism.”
Despite MacMaster’s assertion “I do not believe that I have harmed anyone”, activists were furious. Sami Hamwi, the pseudonym for the Damascus editor of GayMiddleEast.com, wrote: “To Mr MacMaster, I say shame on you!!! There are bloggers in Syria who are trying as hard as they can to report news and stories from the country. We have to deal with too many difficulties than you can imagine. What you have done has harmed many, put us all in danger, and made us worry about our LGBT activism. Add to that, that it might have caused doubts about the authenticity of our blogs, stories, and us.”
What if, instead of confessing, he had simply said he identified as a Syrian lesbian blogger?
H/t Alona.
IIRC, he’d been flirting online with another straight dude writing a lesbian blog. If only there were some way to pair up all the men who identify as lesbians…
(Note – I do not mean people who actually transition to a feminine identity, or anything at all about their pre-transition spouses. I mean these ridiculous “I identify as a lesbian” genderfluid dudes.)
But how do we choose between the ridiculous types and the legitimate ones? Who gets to decide which identity is authentic? You? Me?
Ah, solving that question brings the priest and the doctor, in their long coats, running over the fields.
Well, i don’t know if it’s fair to say it’s ridiculous for a genderfluid dude to say “I identify as a lesbian”, because i remember when i came out of the closet as a homosexual and said “i identify as gay or homosexual or [label]” i really wanted to be believed and sometimes the audience was hostile to believing me and my claim of identity.
Zinnia Jones might not have been in a rush to transition, and she might have spent some time theoretically identifying as a lesbian while still appearing to the world (and maybe even to herself) as a genderfluid dude. I don’t know, i’m just speculating, but my point is, what if they didn’t and/or couldn’t rush? What if they take a lot longer than Zinnia and we just have to patiently say, “okay, i believe your identity claim, and if i have a specific doubt i will then ask you questions if you are okay with that”? Because that’s what i am really tempted to do with some people.
I’m not saying i’m tempted to do that with a fraudulent blogger. I’m saying i’m ready to do that when people honestly tell me their identity sincerely, just like when i came out of the closet and sincerely told some doubters that i truly was queer and it really *was* possible to be a homosexual. Many of them eventually believed me, and i didn’t even have to demonstrate any homosex to prove it to them.
I hope that sounds fair and reasonable and not too far over the cliff of “giving the benefit of the doubt” to people’s gender and sexuality claims.
There is a danger in running things like ‘lesbian blogger from Damascus’ together as identity markers too. After all, whether or not he was a blogger was just a questions of verifiable fact. But our gender identities aren’t like that. Same goes for where we are and what our nationalities are, these are things that we cannot decide for ourselves. You can tell; me until you are blue in the face that you are in Tuscany, but if you are not. But gender isn’t like that, is it?
It’s easy to believe a strange claim about gender and sexual orientation when you see dozens of the claimant’s YouTube videos, such as those from Zinnia Jones.
It’s not necessary to extend that willingness to believe strange claims (extending the benefit of the doubt) to somebody if you suspect they are being dishonest and wish to discuss that with them.
Maybe some con artists are out there, and maybe some are really good at faking some kind of identity, because the fake blogger MacMaster in Edinburgh managed to fool online acquaintances by falsely using other people’s media….
But not everybody is a con artist; and we shouldn’t jump to treat every genderfluid person or androgynous person as somehow suspicious or conniving. That sounds prejudiced, even if you have a bad example to point to such as MacMaster’s.
I laughed at the Trans Pac Man video joke last week, but i also tried to take Zinnia very seriously when she came out as a lesbian while still appearing to be superficially a sort of silly masculine male who hadn’t gone far into her transitioning yet. I hope we are wise enough to be free to have laughs with (not *at*) some of both situations: Trans Pac Man because it’s an absurdity and we don’t think it will ever be real, and Zinnia because she likes to give us amusing things to think about which seem very very real.
People who are transitioning or seriously considering it are one thing, and deserve respect and support. People who appropriate social identities are something else, and do not. I once had an acquaintance who was considering transitioning. I was honored to use the requested pronouns and name, and admired the courage it took to explore the decision. The difference is that (a) this person was taking definite action, both social and psychological/medical, to explore their options, and (b) they did not leap straight into scolding other people for their perceived moral failings.
They decided, for the moment at least, not to transition, but I have enormous respect for the courage it took to explore the decision fairly openly.
The fact is, this particular case was fraudulent in general terms: the blogger presented fiction as nonfiction and presented themselves as *in danger* while comfortably sitting around Scotland making up this second life. In the process, other people were tricked and doubt seeded about other bloggers’ authenticity.
If, in fact, the writer turns out to deeply identify as lesbian and begins transitioning next Tuesday, as far as the blog goes it is still ALL A LIE. So that part doesn’t matter.