After a week’s worth of media speculation regarding the identity of supposed lesbian blogger Amina Arraf, the real author of ‘A Gay Girl in Damascus’ has come forward, incurring criticism and frustration from Syrian LGBT activists and commentators alike.
MSNBC reports that Tom MacMaster, a 40-year-old American graduate student at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, has revealed himself to be the voice behind Amina’s revolutionary persona. In a post entitled “Apology to readers,” published on Sunday in response to Arraf’s supposed abduction by Syrian officials, MacMaster admitted to authoring the blog. He explains that he never anticipated garnering so much international attention; yet also maintains that the blog allowed him to create an “important voice” for the issues he feels strongly about – one that, in essence, was “true and not misleading as to the situation on the ground” in Syria.
“I do not believe that I have harmed anyone,” MacMaster, a self-proclaimed Middle East peace activist, wrote in Sunday’s post.
MacMaster concluded his revelation with the hope that “people pay as much attention to the people of the Middle East and their struggles in this year of revolutions” as they have to the controversy surrounding his fictional lesbian blogger Amina Arraf. But despite his intention to merely “illuminate” those struggles for a western audience, MacMaster has earned heavy criticism from members of Syria’s LGBT community who fear that his hoax has harmed their cause and drawn dangerous attention to the very real gay and lesbian activists under threat by Syrian authorities.
One such activist, writing under the name Sami Hamwi, claimed that MacMaster put LGBT individuals in Syria in danger and raised doubts as to the authenticity of their voices. Another blogger on the same LGBT grassroots site GayMiddleEast.com, writing under the name Daniel Nassar, appeared to agree:
“You took away my voice, Mr. MacMaster,” Nassar claimed, “and the voices of many people who I know…you will be responsible for any LGBT activist who might be yet another fallen angel during these critical time(s).”
As of today, MacMaster issued another, longer apology via the ‘Gay Girl’ blog in which he repeatedly avows his regret and remorse for hurting anyone with whom he shares “a side and a struggle.”
