Following the unmasking of A Gay Girl In Damascus author Amina Araf as Tom MacMaster, a heterosexual man from Georgia currently living in the UK, yet another “lesbian” blogger has been outed as a straight man.  While the Washington Post was doing research for an article on MacMaster, they contacted Paula Brooks, the author of the three-year-old website Lez Get Real.  Brooks told the reporters that she could only speak on the phone through her father because she is deaf, and even submitted a driver’s license image showing Paula Brooks.  However, after several phone conversations, Bill Graber finally admitted “I am Paula Brooks.”

He told the reporters that he started the site after seeing how a lesbian couple that he was friends with was mistreated, and he used a pseudonym in hopes of being taken more seriously.  He said that after “Amina Araf” had commented on a post on Lez Get Real, the two had actually corresponded flirtatiously online, neither aware that the other was also only pretending to be a lesbian.

He says that he hopes that revealing his identity will not harm the reputation that his website has built, and announced that he plans to hand control over the site to a regular contributor, Linda LaVictoire (who writes under her maiden name of Linda Carbonell) of Vermont.  The 62-year-old LaVictoire told the Washington Post that she was as shocked as anyone to hear the news.  She posted her own statement on Lez Get Real, to help straighten out what facts there are until Graber issues one of his own.

**On a personal side note, since there seems to be some sort of trend developing of lesbian bloggers turning out to be straight men, I would like to take this opportunity to say that I am indeed “A Gay Girl in Perrysburg.”  You can even head over to our Facebook page for photographic proof.  That is me painting faces at the 2010 BGSU World AIDS Day Carnival on the cover of the “BG News,” and me in the Outlines Toledo t-shirt at the 2010 Toledo Pride.  You will also find me at this year’s Toledo Pride, as I am the Marketing Coordinator for this year’s event.  :)