‘Gay Girl in Damascus’? Not So Much

In a curious case of scrambled online identities, a 40-year-old American man has been outed as the writer of an attention-grabbing blog by the name of A Gay Girl in Damascus, which was supposedly written by a Syrian-American lesbian. The Washington Post reported that the blogger is a graduate student at the University of Edinburgh.

MSNBC:

The post entitled “Apology to readers” on the “A Gay Girl in Damascus” blog was signed by “Tom MacMaster” in Istanbul, Turkey. The Washington Post identified him as a 40-year-old American man from Georgia. The newspaper described him as a Middle East peace activist working toward a master’s degree at Scotland’s University of Edinburgh.

In the post, the author says the narrative of a lesbian’s life and kidnapping in Syria was fictional but insists “the facts on this blog are true and not misleading as to the situation on the ground.”

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damascusgaygirl.blogspot.com/

A screen shot of the website A Gay Girl in Damascus, taken Monday, shows the author’s apology as the blog’s top story.