From The Washington Post:

In recent days, the world has followed closely the saga of Amina Arraf, the blogger who presented herself online as “A Gay Girl in Damascus” and who drew attention with her passionate writings about the Syrian government’s crackdown on Arab Spring protesters. Those writings stopped last Tuesday, and a posting to the blog, ostensibly written by a cousin, said she had been hauled away by government security agents.

News of her disappearance became an Internet and media sensation. The U.S. State Department started an investigation. But almost immediately skeptics began asking: Has anyone ever actually met Amina? Two days after her disappearance, images presented on her blog as being of Amina were revealed to have been taken from the Facebook page of a London woman.

And on Sunday, the truth spilled out: The gay girl in Damascus confessed to being a 40-year-old American man from Georgia.

The story is also available from CNN and The Guardian, among many others.

Tom MacMaster is a Middle East peace activist who created Amina six years ago to be a voice for his report of human rights abuses in Syria. For some years, “she” has been blogging as “A Gay Girl in Damascus”, which has been carried by a number of sites including Lez Get Real, none of them apparently aware that they were being had by a straight white male masquerading as a gay half-Syrian woman. In his apology on Sunday, MacMaster wrote:

I never expected this level of attention. While the narrative voice may have been fictional, the facts on this blog are true and not misleading 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.