There's been a recent blog-o-sphere brouhaha over a couple of straight men who were pretending to be lesbians online, not in chatrooms for prurient purposes, but in order to write political blogs about issues affecting women and lesbians, including lesbians in the Middle East.
Their reasoning? According to Talk of the Nation, they pretended to be Lesbians because they wanted people to take them seriously when they wrote about such issues.
Well good job, guys, I'm sure that everyone is taking you very seriously now.
Tom McMasters, a straight man living in Scotland, wrote a blog called "A Gay Girl in Damascus" in which he wrote a fictional account of being a lesbian in Syria. MacMasters wrote stories as Amina Arraf, and described being Lesbian in Syria. When the Arab spring occurred, MacMasters supported it, and then wrote accounts of the Syrian Police showing up at Amina's door and then wrote about how the police were told off by Amina's father, and were shamed into leaving Amina and her family alone. In reality, if anyone stands up to the Syrian Police, they're disappeared permanently. So her blog encouraged others to take actions which were life-endangering.
Gay Middle East, a website for LGBT activists, has a better response than I could write. Here's Daniel Nasser on the issue. He wrote that he had another screaming fight with his father. His father believed that Gays and Lesbians were destroying the middle east, and were agents of western influence. Amina has given Nasser's father all the proof he needs to continue believing this.
Finally; to be able to publish this story, and to be quoted on other stories over the past couple of days, editors from across the globe needed to talk to me; to verify if I’m a real person or just another fake character like Amina; the trust between foreign media and those activists, who are needing any support they can get to continue their brave struggle, is gone forever because of Amina. Also, world citizens, those who believe in higher values like peace, humanity and equality, are not going to take the story of the next arrest in the region seriously; they would think it’s just another Amina happening again.
The real people in the LGBT community in this region are damaged because of you, Mr. MacMaster; your practical joke is not harmless; it actual is very harmful. Tomorrow, if the last word someone manages to tweet before they disappear forever is “I’m arrested”; I want you to remember that you caused all of this with each and every doubtful mention that tweet gets.
My mother cried when she heard of Amina; she was worried about me; and I can assure you; all of your apologies means nothing to me compared to my mother’s tears; Your apology is not accepted; your words are as meaningless the time you spent writing them.
So thanks to Tom MacMasters, the Bigots in the middle east have all the evidence they need to paint gays and lesbians as the evil pawns of the US and Europe. Good job, Tom.
Look, if you want to write a story about someone you aren't, if you want to write a fictional blog to highlight a real issue, then it is important to write, at the top of your blog, or on your info page "This is fiction." If you turn out to be a skilled writer, you will have readers e-mail you their stories, which you can then weave into your story. Fiction has a place in social commentary. But it's only appropriate if everyone knows that it's fiction.
If I want to write a story about a farmworker in Chile, I'm free to write it as long as people are clear that it's a story. Otherwise, it's Jimmy's World all over again.
I'm not Anglo Saxon, but that hasn't mattered since the Anglos found themselves outnumbered and scared in the sixties, and decided that anyone lighter than a paper bag got to be white just to shore up the numbers. I'm a Gael, and while my ancestors had to deal with signs that said No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, that's a thing of the past at least for my people in the United States. (Guess who has to deal with that mentality still, if not the signs?)
I'm also male, but that doesn't prevent me from recognizing blatant and constant sexism that Americans are bathed in whenever they're consuming or exposed to any sort of media. If I boycotted every product that tried to use tits as an advertising method, I wouldn't even be able to buy vegetables at the grocery store. But hey, Sex Sells, right?
Even if I were a white-bread Anglo-Saxon Anglican, I could still speak with authority about issues affecting people who aren't white men, because I have eyes.
My point is this: White men can write about any issue affecting any group. They will be taken seriously if their ideas deserve it.
I can speak with authority on issues that affect the LGBTQQIA community, many ethnic communities, and women. I have diaries I'm writing and research I'm doing on everything from immigration activists being threatened with deportation to the experience of gays and lesbians in Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee. Just because I'm not experiencing oppression myself, doesn't mean I can't write about the oppression I see every day.
You don't need to be gay or lesbian to talk about gays and lesbians, to fight for equal rights, to protect them from the psychological trauma caused by the Christian Right and other bigots, or to stand up for them when it's needed. If more straight people did so and did so as straight people, we'd have the bigots on the run.
Instead, a world has been created now where every time an important story about a gay or lesbian experience appears on someone's blog, people will be asking whether it's a hoax.
Instead of bringing to light the experiences of lesbians in Syria with fiction, Tom MacMasters allowed president Assad to use his fabrication as proof that the rebels were supported by nefarious westerners. Not that things were great for gays and lesbians in Syria before this happened, but this has made things categorically worse.
In some Middle Eastern countries the accusation of links with Zionism can get activists arrested, tortured, jailed and in extreme circumstances even killed. These false accusations of Zionism are putting the freedom and lives of our courageous GME contributors in danger. They also risk creating a homophobic backlash in the Arab world which would cause huge damage to LGBT rights, activists and campaigns throughout the region. This is reckless in the extreme. We appeal to our critics to think of the people they are endangering and stop these untrue allegations...
Tom MacMaster’s fake blog brought the work of LGBT activists in Syria to the attention of the authorities in a dangerous and unnecessary way. Now is a time for unity and common cause, not making completely unfounded allegations that make our editors’ work in Syria even more dangerous.
Bravo gentlemen. You gave the bigots exactly what they needed.