Internet Cross-Dressing, or, The Altruistic Impersonator

Many of you may have seen this story about a blogger who recently revealed that she was not, after all, a gay Syrian woman who went missing, but a heterosexual American man who had been impersonating one online for several years. The actual blogger, Tom MacMaster, confessed to his deception only after the story of Amina Arraf fell to pieces under outside scrutiny (including that of the State Department), saying:

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'm reminded both of Greg Mortenson's story and that of teen prostitute JT LeRoy/housewife Laura Albert, and I wonder how many more stories like this there are. MacMaster claims he wanted to bring important social issues to light, but something about his "six-month friendship" with a woman with whom he "exchanged some 500 emails" and several photographs suggests more selfish motives. Other than a picture of MacMaster and his wife vacationing in Damascus, there is no mention in the article of his level of knowledge about Syria or oppressed homosexuals, and I wonder where he got the material for his blog. I also suspect that "Amina" went missing just as her followers started to become suspicious of her existence, but I begin to conjecture.

Perhaps the blog "Gay Girl in Damascus" raised positive awareness about a real issue, and maybe no real harm was done, but I see the time and resources spent looking for an imaginary missing person as depleting resources for real rescues of and aid to real people. It's probably true that gay people are arrested in Damascus all the time, so shouldn't we help them instead of playing at being one of them?