Lez Get Real was a news site for lesbian audiences that operated between 2008 and 2014. The website was founded in 2008.Flock, Elizabeth and Melissa Bell.

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Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

''. June 13, 2011. Retrieved on April 8, 2013. The founder operated the website as "Paula Brooks," and pretended to be a lesbian, as well as deaf to deflect suspicion about being unable to use the phone to talk to journalists. In 2011, after it was revealed that the self-described Syrian lesbian blogger Amina Abdallah Arraf al Omari was actually a hoax by an American man, Tom MacMaster, "Brooks" revealed himself as Bill Graber, a retired construction worker from

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

.Goldenberg, Suzanne.
Outrage in US as 'lesbian' bloggers revealed to be men
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The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

''. June 14, 2011. Retrieved on June 14, 2011. The revelation came one day after MacMaster was revealed. After the Lez Get Real hoax was revealed, reaction from the lesbian community was negative. Judy Dlugacz, the founder and owner of Olivia, a travel company catering to lesbians, described the hoax as an "outrage."

Suzanne Goldenberg Suzanne Goldenberg is a Canadian-born author and journalist. She is currently editing global enterprise for Reuters. She was previously employed by ''The Guardian'' as their United States environmental correspondent. Biography Goldenberg was bor ...

said that the lesbian community on the Internet was "a small world" and that "there are relatively few general news sites run by lesbians, and for some writers LezGetReal offered a chance to break into writing. Within those close circles, a number of people said they felt betrayed." The site continued to operate under new ownership. At the end of 2014, Lez Get Real shut down due to a combination of financial reasons and burn out among the remaining writers. The writers and editors released a statement regarding the closure of the website, which is no longer available.

References

American news websites Lesbian-related websites Hoaxes in the United States Internet hoaxes {{news-website-stub