Syria: A Gay Man In Aleppo?

Air strikes in Syria will not help LGBTI people persecuted by IS and may lead to revenge attacks against them.

That’s the message from LGBTI Syrians themselves after UK Prime Minister David Cameron cited the execution of gay men as one of the reasons Britain should bomb Islamic State targets.

Reports and graphic images have emerged throughout the year of gay Syrians being thrown from buildings by IS and stoned to death by mobs.

But the bombing raids could make things even worse, according to Armen from Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.

He told GSN today: ‘The British intervention will make the local LGBTs more vulnerable. It places them at risk because IS and the other fighters will take revenge on them.’

Ratteb, a gay Syrian now in exile in Beirut, described IS as ‘the cancer of society’ saying it ‘is against every religious group, including Christianity and Islam’.

But he felt the foreign intervention in Syria would not help LGBTIs.

‘Our problem isn’t only with IS but with all the Arab regimes and the legislation in the region that means LGBTIs have no role in society,’ he said.

‘If these big countries like the Britain really want to help our main concern is changing the law [that criminalizes homosexuality] to help us effectively become active parts of the society.’

Jawad, a Syrian LGBTI refugee now living in Helsinki, Finland, questioned whether gay rights were really a concern of the US, UK, France and others in the coalition.

He told us: ‘In any case, Britain isn’t getting involved in the war to protect gays but for its own benefit, just like every country interfering in the war in Iraq and Syria.’

The American-led coalition includes Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, that all criminalize homosexuality, alongside the western allies...

Gay Star News.

Surprised/pleased to see GSN running this, and not being running dogs of imperialism as per.

Maybe they've been shamed into it?

Correction: Neither gay nor a girl nor in Damascus.

However, please bear in mind that LGBT voices from the Middle East quoted in the Western media are notoriously unreliable.

Most infamously you may recall in 2011 the much vaunted blog, A Gay Girl In Damascus - who, after claiming she'd been kidnapped - was exposed as being written by a straight American man in Edinburgh.

Syria: A Gay Guy In Beirut

The Arab Spring promised reform across the Middle East, but the turmoil is ongoing, including within the gay community.

Syrian refugees have fled to countries already facing major challenges, and often face discrimination not only because of their nationality, but their sexuality.

The BBC's James Longman went to Beirut, Lebanon, to hear some gay refugees' disturbing accounts of abuse.

BBC News.

There's a companion text article looking more broadly at gay life in the Middle East, though much of it reads like it was written from a distance after a quick Google.

The Western media doesn't have a very good record on reliable reporting about LGBT Syrians; you may remember the excited and widespread trumpeting of and reliance on the blog, A Gay Girl In Damascus - until it was exposed as being written by an American straight man in Edinburgh.

Oops!

Saudi Arabia: Spot The Difference

"Activists are concerned for the safety of a 30-year-old man arrested by the religious police in Saudi Arabia for using Facebook to date other men. The man, whose exact identity is not known, was arrested on 23 December (2011) but full details of the incident are only now becoming clear after a detailed investigation by Gay Middle East. Experts warn he may face blackmail and/or corporal punishment..."

Pink News.
Their news story goes on to quote a spokesperson for Amnesty International:

"Amnesty International is seeking more information on this case. If the man reported in the Sabq story has been arrested and charged with homosexuality, Amnesty International would consider him to be a prisoner of conscience and call for his immediate and unconditional release..."

Fagburn agrees with Amnesty - let's find out more, like if this happened.
Particularly as so many LGBT stories from the Middle East turn out to be invented, spun or distorted.
The Saudi Arabia story could prove to be true, of course, but it could turn out to be a fiction like last year's "abduction" of A Gay Girl In Damascus.
The Pink News story was first published on GayMiddleEast.com.
It was written by Dan Littauer - executive editor of Gay Middle East, a German citizen who lives in London.
Gay Middle East's unreliability - often driven by a pro-Zionist bias - has been pointed out by many queer Arab activists.

A Gay Girl In Damascus: Home Thoughts From "A Broad"

"The media’s current focus on the clever nature of the gay-girl hoax (‘it is an elaborate hoax', says a track-covering Guardian), overlooks what is easily the most important dynamic in this story: not MacMaster’s alleged powers of persuasion, but the media’s susceptibility to delusion. However well-written or seemingly authentic MacMaster’s blog was – and as it happens, some Syrians have said it was unconvincing – the fact is that it was just a blog; just a self-started website with various bits of personal writing and nothing to suggest that any of it was accurate or authoritative. Those complaining about being duped, Scooby Doo-style, by the apparent master of disguise that is Tom MacMaster need to have a word with themselves..."
"That serious journalists fell for MacMaster’s fiction speaks to a profound crisis of objectivity in the modern media, and a preference for simplistic moralism over the tough task of reporting..."

Brendan O'Neill, 'Why so many hacks fell for the ‘gay girl in Syria’', Spiked.
This brazenly selective quotation should not be taken as an endorsement of anything else by Brendan O'Neill or Spiked.
Thank you.

There are some other points worth making here, which Fagburn hopes would be as obvious as rain.
The virtual world is full of people who have constructed virtual identities. It's part of its attraction. Is anyone really surprised by this?
The mainstream media love how this story has panned out; "You see, you just can't trust them bloggers..." - neglecting to mention that many of them did trust that blogger, and they failed to check "her" story.
Journalists tell lies for a living - Tom MacMaster only did it as a hobby.
The damage done by the fiction that was the A Gay Girl In Damascus blog pales into insignificance when compared to the systematic lies in the mainstream media, especially when they're delivering wartime propaganda in the service of the state.

• Also can anyone tell me the last time a story about lesbians made the cover of The Guardian's G2?

Lez Get Real: Somebody Told Me That Her Name Was Bill...

"Just one day after the author behind a popular Syrian lesbian blog admitted to being a married, American man named Tom MacMaster, the editor of the lesbian news site Lez Get Real, with the tag­line 'A Gay Girl’s View on the World', acknowledged that he is also a man.
"'Paula Brooks', editor of Lez Get Real since its founding in 2008, is actually Bill Graber, 58, a retired Ohio military man and construction worker who said he had adopted his wife’s identity online. Graber said she was unaware he had been using her name on his site...
"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...
"'I didn’t start this with my name because... I thought people wouldn’t take it seriously, me being a straight man,' he said.
"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..."

You couldn't make it up!
Oh, hang on - you did!!!
From the Washington Post blog.
What a wonderfully ironic name "Lez Get Real" turned out to be.
Maybe they should change it to "Lez Pretend"?
Can't happen here?
The pseudo-radical late 90s British gay magazine, OutCast, had one regular "lesbian contributor".
The words were by the (male) editor Chris Morris, the photo used was of his sister.

At the time of typing Lez Get Real appears to be offline...

Update Tuesday AM: The site's back up - can't see any apologia/mea culpa from Bill...

Update 2: Unintentionally hilarious piece on this story by Pink News' editor Jessica Geen. The editor and main writer of "Europe's largest gay news service" is heterosexual.

A Gay Girl In Damascus: It's A Boy!

Apology to readers

I never expected this level of attention. While the narrative voıce may have been fictional, the facts on thıs blog are true and not mısleading as to the situation on the ground. I do not believe that I have harmed anyone -- I feel that I have created an important voice for issues that I feel strongly about.

I only hope that people pay as much attention to the people of the Middle East and their struggles in thıs year of revolutions. The events there are beıng shaped by the people living them on a daily basis. I have only tried to illuminate them for a western audience.

This experience has sadly only confirmed my feelings regarding the often superficial coverage of the Middle East and the pervasiveness of new forms of liberal Orientalism.

However, I have been deeply touched by the reactions of readers.

Best,
Tom MacMaster,
Istanbul, Turkey *
July 12, 2011

This follows a virtual outing of Tom McMaster as "A Gay Girl In Damascus" by The Electronic Intifada earlier today.
Oops!
Much of the mainstream media is pretending to be scandalised - but as lies of our time go, this one was pretty small-fry and relatively benign.

Update: Gay Middle East runs two pieces Monday by Syrian gay bloggers saying McMaster put their lives in danger;
"I'm so outraged I can't even type well.
"Mr. Tom MacMaster, with due respect, has the audacity to say on the blog he created over the last two years that he did not harm anyone with his fictional writing; I beg to differ.
"Because of you, Mr. MacMaster, a lot of the real activists in the LGBT community became under the spotlight of the authorities in Syria. These activists, among them myself, had to change so much in their attitude and their lives to protect themselves from the positional harm your little stunt created. You have, sir, put a lot of lives, mine and some friends included, in harm's way so you can play your little game of fictional writing..."

* He's based in Edinburgh, but currently claims to be "on holiday".

Update: Good piece by Brian Whitaker 'Gay Girl In Damascus Was An Arrogant Fantasy'

Amina Abdullah: "Abducted"

"A blogger whose frank and witty thoughts on Syria's uprising, politics and being a lesbian in the country shot her to prominence was last night seized by armed men in Damascus.
"Amina Arraf, who blogged under the name Amina Abdallah, holds dual Syrian and American citizenship and is the author of the blog A Gay Girl in Damascus, which has drawn fans from Syria and across the world.
"She was kidnapped last night as she and a friend were on their way to a meeting in Damascus. The kidnapping was reported on her blog by a cousin.
"'Amina was seized by three men in their early 20s. According to the witness (who does not want her identity known), the men were armed," wrote Rania Ismail..."

The Guardian.

• Free Amina.

Update: Doubt has been cast on both the veracity of this story and of the blog...

Update2: Lengthy Guardian report trying to check this.
GayMiddleEast.com say that while much of the blog seems "authentic", they are more sceptical about accounts of what has happened to Amina recently.