The REAL Paula Brooks.

So, it's been a while since I've blogged, what with trying to get the whole baby thing on track - which, by the by, we are NEARLY THERE! I'll keep you posted.

However, I have to blog tonight because an article in the Washington Post was just brought to my attention...have you seen it? Here's the link (read it and then come back to me):

‘Paula Brooks,’ editor of ‘Lez Get Real,’ also a man
By Elizabeth Flock and Melissa Bell

For those who haven't had the um, distinct pleasure of interacting with Paula or know what Lez Get Real is, it's a website reporting on everything from celebrity to court cases with an LGBT slant. I'm not a reader of the site because, well, because myself and several other of my blogger friends had a falling out with her, I mean HIM, long before the inception of Lez Get Real.

But first things first. As the article points out, Paula is not Paula. Paula is really a married man named Bill Graber only pretending to be Paula. Paula got BUSTED because s/he was part of the investigation into Amina Arraf, the supposed Syrian lesbian blogger who went missing and became an international story. Turns out, Amina is really a married, American man named Tom MacMaster. Apparently, neither Amina or Paula knew the other was a hoax, but Amina's trail led to Paula's trail which led to a Washington Post article which led to my Facebook page which led to me reading it and yelling WHAT THE FUCK?

Ya follow?

I KNEW something wasn't right with Paula. So did my blogging buddies who are doing exactly what I've done which is cull through all their emails to help expose this guy. He didn't just start pretending to blog from a lesbian perspective three years ago and with good intentions, no matter what quote he gave to the Post. Sure, Paula's articles were timely and informative, but there was an aggression to Paula and those of us who interacted with "her" quickly got the sense that something was off.

My first interaction with 'Paula Brooks' happened on November 15, 2007.  Here's the email I received:

dear Heather,



Hello my name is Paula Brooks, you probably know me as Paula the Surf Mom and I would first like to say I love your blog. I find you very witty and humorous; and that is the whole point of this e-mail. As You know recently I joined the staff at Lesbiatopia and am have a great time blogging on lesbian topics so let me get right to this and ask if you would possibly be interested in blogging with us. As you can see from the attached email our other main writer at Lesbiatopia, Renee Gannon, would also love if you would join us as well. What we offer to you is a very good traffic base as some very good exposure to your articles...


if you go to our page and click on our sitemeter you will see we are averaging somewhere around 700 or better hits most days at the moment and just this week alone we have had 3000 visitors come through our site... and we have developed a very good promotion program for our blog so that has been going up every week and we think we should be at around 17000 hits or more by the end of this month.


So like I told Renee in the attached e mail I thought as a writer you might be interested in sharing our traffic and join us. and your writing style would be a perfect fit for all I think. Think it over... I think this would be good for all concerned


Paula

I was very flattered at the time as I'd been building readership of my own blog, but didn't see how I could possibly keep up with content for another, despite being a fan of Lesbiatopia. I wrote back explaining I was beyond flattered, but didn't want to commit to something and be unable to follow through.

Paula was persistent with her compliments and seeming flexibility and even emailed me a picture of her baby twin daughters with signs pleading with me to write for Lesbiatopia. No idea if the kids are really Paula/Bill's or just borrowed for the deception, but the story of Paula Brooks included a wife named Deb with cancer and twin baby girls. Oh, and Paula was deaf, so communicating by email was the only way to reach her. Unless, of course, she could get her father on the phone who could interpret for her. As we all know, now, thanks to the Post article, Paula's father was really Paula, who is really Bill. No one was deaf.

Ya follow?

I never had a need to talk to Paula's father, but a few of my friends did when the blogging world got messy and Paula started bullying and coming damn near close to harassing and threatening folks (more on that in a bit). My friends who talked to her father said it was beyond creepy. They confronted him about Paula's bullying behavior and "her dad" said things like:

- Paula will always be my princess and I will always give her what she wants
- I know Paula can be aggressive, but.....

So insanely creepy knowing the full story now and how ill someone has to be to concoct this entire charade.

But back to my early interactions with Paula. I agreed to write humor/slice of life articles for Lesbiatopia, pretty much the same type of content I wrote for this here blog. Over the course of the next few months, I corresponded mostly with Paula, but also began to form a friendship with Renee (Lesbiatopia's editor) and with another blogger/contributor who I'll call S. for now (I'm pretty sure both Renee and S. will be recounting their own run-ins with Paula and I'll let you know when/if those stories go live).

When I went a few weeks without submitting anything to Lesbiatopia, I got a nice email from Paula just checking in. I explained I was working through some challenges with some difficult people at the time and needed to take a breather. She seemed to understand, but assumed my issues were related to the fact I was gay which I never said and which wasn't true. She wrote the following email:

Thu, 5/15/08, Paula Brooks
Date: Thursday, May 15, 2008, 2:25 PM

Thanks for letting me know whats up... I was worried when I had not heard form you in such a long time.


Heather I am sorry this is all happening to you, it is of course all shit, but is unfortunately part of many of our lives as lesbians. There are some people out there that hate gays so much they will do and say anything to hurt us.


I have a bunch of these horror stories from my time working for the NSA. I went to Duke and I can tell you that RDH is a pretty nice area to live in so that could be a good thing if you move there.


Looking forward to your articles, they sound like just where we want to go with our content. And thanks for the prayers.... Mom is doing a lot better these days, but she still can't speak real well... but then I could never hear her anyway so I guess it all balances out.


The girls are good, getting so big and lord are they smart. They keep me hopping with their schemes. I sat them down this morning to make you some "Feel Better Soon Ms Heather" cards.


Huggs
Paula 

Unreal, right? Reading back through these now, I just shake my head. Playing the deaf card...not being able to hear her ailing mom; the kids are gonna make me cards....

Completely of her own volition, Paula started promoting the heck out of my blog and it did bring in new readership, but also an unspoken pressure from Paula. It started to get uncomfortable for me, especially when she told me she could help pep up my blog, all she'd need was the user name/password. I wasn't comfortable with that, so I just asked for the directions on how to implement a few of my ideas. She never got back to me. Apparently, if she couldn't have access, she really had no interest in helping me out. It was a red flag. Another one.

But it gets better. Way better.

My blogging pal S. was going through a difficult time and Paula started insisting she take her struggle publicly and refused to respect S.'s wishes to deal with the situation in her own time. Paula began emailing Renee and I, demanding we do our lesbian duty and make S. understand why it really wasn't an option not to share her entire life with the world. We bucked back. Said no way would we participate in making someone do something they weren't ready for. Paula threatened to take the story to the press herself and really put S. through hell.

Paula sent S. emails and texts that to be honest, frightened her. I suggested she alert the authorities just to have some sort of record of the harassment. Eventually, Renee was pulled into the mix and both S. and I shared our concerns about Paula's behavior.

In September of 2008, Paula and Renee started having real difficulties seeing eye to eye about the progression of Lesbiatopia, not to mention Renee didn't want other site contributors to have to deal with the same type of treatment S. endured. I'm sure Renee will go into detail about what happened with the site when her article goes live, but suffice it to say, things got ugly when Paula realized Renee wasn't going to back down and give control of the site away. Paula had access to the website user name and password, because Renee trusted her, and out of anger, logged into the site and changed the user information, locking Renee out of her own site. When Renee confronted her, she refused to give up the new password information until Renee beat her at her own game. Renee pretended to be sorry, asked for forgiveness and said she truly did want to work with Paula. That worked, she got the information and within seconds, Paula was the one locked out.

As you can imagine, things got ugly. Paula started emailing us contributors about how unfair the situation was, bad mouthing Renee and wanting us to take sides. Again. At this point, I'm just wanting to stay as far away from Paula as possible.

However, as a reader and sometimes contributor to Lesbiatopia, I couldn't help but read the malicious and hateful comments she'd post on the site's articles. Anything she could to try and belittle Renee, she did. Her comments even bordered on threatening.

For instance, she left this "message" for Renee on the blog:

Date: Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 5:05 PM

Subject: [Lesbiatopia] New comment on Interview: Madalyn Sklar of GoGirls Music.

look my favicon is not the only thing you will wind up with if we dont deal with this....

I'm not sure what a favicon is, but I do know what a cyber bully looks like.

Paula must have realized s/he stepped over the line becuase the comment was deleted soon after it was posted, but copies of it were kept and filed.

In November of 2008 as Paula continued to wage cyber war on Renee, protests for LGBT rights were happening all over the country and Paula anointed herself as the most important lesbian on the face of the planet who had the power to question every blogging queer about their activism. It was obnoxious and offensive.

Renee was dealing with a personal issue during one of the protests and already had a trip planned to Palm Springs. She blogged about the trip, but not about her personal issue.

Of course, Paula left a comment on the blog:

From: Paula Brooks
Date: Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 2:26 PM

Subject: [Lesbiatopia] New comment on My Palm Springs Weekend Plus A Pictorial.


Everybody else was in the street protesting and fighting for your rights and you were in Palm Springs?

I'd had enough. I responded.

November 12, 2008 2:36 PM
thewishfulwriter said...

you don't need to defend where or how you spent your weekend. You helped raise nearly $16,000 to fight Prop 8. And even if you didn't, you still don't owe anyone an explanation.

November 12, 2008 2:41 PM

Paula Brooks said...

ok heather whatever
and I am wondering here...can she speak for herself or do she need YOU to fight that battle for her too

I was in the midst of considering how to respond or even if I should when my personal email account started dinging. I had new mail. Of course I did. I knew it was Paula even before I opened the window. I knew exactly how she'd gone after S. and Renee and knew now that I'd called her out publicly, she'd be contacting me ASAP.
 
The email from Paula:
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 11:10 PM

Heather I'm  not looking to fight with you, but this is not going to be won by people being all sweetness and nice...


They tried that... they wanted everyone to like us after it was over... well we lost and we lost big and they still don't like us.... (Paula is referring to Prop 8)


Now I was not out there in LA... but I was here all weekend with Debs... working the phones and texting people to get them out and to speak up for Julie and Johann who were in the street.


Lori Hahn was on the steps of the state capital speaking up


But that is Renee... always something more fun to do... she needs to be shamed if not for going to Palm Springs then for writing about it when others were out there fighting for her...

Paula

My response:

To: "Paula Brooks"
Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2008, 6:21 PM

I disagree. She should be very proud of what she's done to date and if we start judging each other, we are no better than those we are protesting against. Bullying others into doing things the way we want them to or think they should is not the answer. Ever. Good luck in your efforts.


heather

Paula's response:
Thursday, November 13, 2008 1:22 PM
From: "Paula Brooks"

Yes Heather, Renee wrote some articles that helped raise some money and a thousand dollars of that money was from a check I wrote… Then she took her own money and went to have a good time while Julie and others were fighting for her rights in a street not two miles from Renee's home… (Paula is referencing Renee's Palm Springs trip here).


It is not just Renee, this seems to be a real big problem in our community. Now you can write articles or you can write checks…You can pretend everything is going to be ok and go on vacation or you can see it is not and get into the street to raise your voice…You can get mad at me for getting on your asses to get you out to tell the haters no more or you can get out and get mad at the haters for making you a second class citizen…


It is all a choice… Which one are you going to make? Will I see you Saturday at the Capitol?


Paula

My response:

From: "Heather"
To: "Paula Brooks"

Sent: 11/13/08 3:24 PM
Subject: RE: Here is how I see this...

Here's what I think...I think you don't know as much as you think you do about everyone else's life and why they do things (or don't do things). Seriously...who do you think you are?!

I think you have shown yourself to be a bully and childish in how you handle your anger. I think you should take your own advice and focus your energy on positive things instead of lashing out at anyone who has the guts to stand up to you.


No, I won't be there on saturday. I have to work. Go ahead and bully me now too. I won't be responding or reading any more communication from you. I chose to focus on positive people with positive energy. Your merry go round of anger is a big red flag to more people than you think.


heather

On November 15th, 2008, Paula posted this in the comment section of my blog (she deleted it not long after posting it):

You know Heather you said I don't know what is going on in other people lives.... that i should be more constructive...


Here is what I get from reading this blog... you had a great time playing with you friends...

I don't see where you called your congressman to say all of this sucked...

I don't see where you called your mayor saying all of this sucked...


I don't see where you e mailed Obama saying all of this sucked


Those are constructive things to do and good things to tell others you did because they respect you and they will follow your lead...


but In fact from reading this blog all i see is you telling others to do something you are not going to do yourself...


That to me is a very big red flag to me and that is how we lost in California...


Now till you are doing that I won't be reading this pink cloud you call a lesbian blog any more.


Paula

I know I said in a previous email to Paula I wouldn't be responding to her anymore, but I just needed to get out one last thing. Okay, well, several last things. I chose to do it publicly in the comment section of my blog because I felt like it was important for her (him, damn it this is confusing) to know that bullying will not be tolerated.

As I was re-reading what I wrote, I have to say, some of this sounds almost prophetic in light of the Post article....

I wrote...

Oh Paula: You know, if I actually respected you, your comment might make me stop and think instead of just shake my head in amusement.



And what I said was that you should not go around trying to bully people on their blogs by leaving hateful comments, similar to the one you just left on mine, when you have NO idea what the person has going on in their life. You blasted someone for taking a MUCH needed break when you have NO idea the reason/timing behind it. I do. It was necessary.


I could say your time would be better spent with your daughters instead of trolling blogs and leaving hateful comments - but that would be me ASSUMING you don't already spend enough time with them. I can't make that call. I'm not privy to your life and your day to day operations. Similarly, YOU are not privy to ours - so stop making assumptions. You look foolish.


Believe it or not, there are things YOU DON'T KNOW. The world doesn't revolve around Paula Brooks and what she says and how she thinks. Your dictator-like tendencies are laughable. You are sweetness and light as long as NO ONE gets out of step with you. Or disagrees with you. Or calls you on your bullying/militant hateful ways. The moment that happens, you turn into a threatening, stalker-like bully (you are lucky no one turned over some your messages to the authorities. Seriously). The moment I said something about how childish it is that you are STILL leaving hateful comments on people's blogs, you started flooding my inbox with your hate and condescending theories. Completely predictable.


The fact you can't see or take responsibility for the bridges you've burned isn't surprising. I didn't have a thought one way or the other re: the Lesbiatopia split. You made my mind up for me as soon as you showed your true colors and began leaving nasty (often threatening) messages. I've been angry and disagreed with people, but I've NEVER behaved the way you did, nor do I condone it. I knew if you would do that to one person, you'd do it to another. And I was right - here you are doing it to me.


As for my blog, I never claimed it to be a LESBIAN blog. I identify as more than just a gay woman (you should try it). It's just MY blog. About MY life. You don't get to control the content - and I know that bugs you. You feel like you have a say in ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. Because you know it all...you have all the answers...


You have NO idea what I have or haven't done in the way of seeking equal rights. And I'm not going to defend or disclose it just to prove to you I'm a "good gay."


You are NO BETTER than the people we are seeking equality from. Because YOU have to have it YOUR WAY. And if people disagree, you attack them. Anyone reading my blog or a handful of others can see this for themselves.


I know you think venom is the only way to achieve success. You think being nice is worthless. Believe it or not, you can be assertive WITHOUT being nasty. Again, you should try it.


I actually feel sorry for you. It has to take so much effort to be so angry and hateful all the time. To troll blogs, searching for a post just so you can leave a dig or try to say something really hurtful.


I told you I'd no longer be reading or responding to any emails you send me. The same thing goes for this blog. Send all the nasty comments you want, they will not be posted or replied to.


ps. I don't care how many readers you have. They'll learn.


pss. I'm actually relieved you won't be reading my blog anymore. But I don't really believe that. I'm almost positive you'll be back to read my response. And you will either respond back or flood my email. And if history repeats itself, you'll be leaving nasty comments for months to come. I won't be reading or responding to any of it. Nor will I be heading to your blog to leave nasty comments. That's not MY style.

I'm moving on. Please do the same.


Heather

 I never heard from Paula again. S/he started Lez Get Real and found a new group of bloggers to target. Hadn't even thought about Paula Brooks again until Renee posted the Post article on my Facebook.

I share my interaction with Paula because I refuse to sit by and let Paula/Bill say he did all of this with the purest intentions to help the LGBT community. Bull shit. No way. What our community really needs is straight allies who can amplify our voices. Paula/Bill could have done that, used his powers for good. He chose deception, bullying and harassment of the very community he now says he only wanted to help.

Oh. This is Paula (so he says):

UPDATE: photo removed at the request of "Paula" who still has the balls (and I can say that now that we know "Paula" is a dude) to post comments using the LezGetReal avatar and the name Paula Brooks.

HE wrote in my comment section (June 15, 2011 6:47 PM):


The Washington Post had my specific permission to use my picture... because they asked I am specifically denying you that permission. Please remove the photo,

My response:

"Paula" - Actually, I'm more than HAPPY to remove your photo from my blog. Plenty of people have seen it and will be able to find it without having to look very far. It's served it's purpose. Not at all surprising that this is your only comment when what you SHOULD be doing is apologizing for your inexcusible behavior. Of course, not that any of us expect it from the likes of you.


P.S. Renee's article is up with more detail about her relationship with Paula/Bill and exactly what went down with Lesbiatopia. It's very well written and full of more unbelievable lies.
Melanie Nathan also wrote about her experiences with Paula Brooks.

P.S. I've read several comments where people have said we need to cut this man a break, that isn't it possible he was truly just trying to advance the LBGT cause. No go. Let's just say, for a second, I roll with that line of thought. WHY IN THE WORLD would he also need to create a wife and twin baby girls? Okay, let's say to help "round out his character." WHY IN THE WORLD would he use his own wife's name and identity for this "character?" - without her knowledge? WHAT DID PAULA GAIN by saying her wife, Deb, DIED OF CANCER? Why in the world would that be necessary to "advance our cause?" Plain and simple - Bill is a NARCISSIST who enjoyed the attention he received by bullying. His online life was far more exciting than his real one. the end.

Dear God.....this stuff only gets worse. We are even starting to question whether Bill is even really Bill. What's keeping that from being a lie? More reading:

http://www.gaelick.com/2011/06/our-friend-paula-brooks/16220/#tab=tab1

http://www.thegavoice.com/index.php/blog/culture/2817-straight-men-posing-as-lesbian-bloggers-can-choke-on-their-keyboards