It's been a very difficult couple of days, and an even more difficult decision to write this post. It comes uncomfortably close to outing, for me, but I truly believe that this is a post that needs to be made, because there are people that do not know who have conversed with this user even more frequently than those who do know.
I realise how cryptic that sounds, and here is where I'll cut to the chase, provide a few preface items, and then move into as much detail as I can share:
The tumblr user we know as Jimmy (stjimmyjazz) is not who they say they are.
1. I will not be naming names, other than the obvious. Those of us who have been dealing with this since yesterday (and even in the days before) have had an incredibly distressing, upsetting time, and I don't wish for any further upset to be caused. When I use the word 'us,' I'm referring to the group of people who were closest to this person in varying degrees, and were the first to be told.
2. Any names used are not real names, and this post contains no links to the real information we uncovered. Even after everything that has happened, even after we reached as near to the bottom of the pot as we could, I'm not here to shout my mouth off or to make anyone else's existence worse.
3. PLEASE do not send any messages, anonymous or otherwise, to 'Jimmy', hereafter to be referred to as G. The people that have been involved in this over the past two days have either already communicated with G privately, or will be doing so. There is no need for anyone else to be involved, and there is NEVER any need for hate mail.
4. Despite the personal hurt I've felt (and am still feeling) over this entire thing, I am going to be as objective and impartial as I possibly can, and give you only the facts.
All that being said, here is what we know:
Late last week, information was uncovered that led to one of us, hereafter referred to as P, finding a link between a cell phone number belonging to 'Jimmy,' and a Facebook page belonging to G. P did some very thorough investigating, and came to realise that 'Jimmy' had been lying to us all (at that time, it wasn't clear to what extent). The Facebook page that P found was under a completely different name, gender, and sexual orientation.
P then sent an email to 'Jimmy' with what they had found, asking for the truth. P received a reply from the person who revealed herself to be G, admitting to having made up 'Jimmy' nearly ten years ago and apologising profusely.
It was then, on Sunday afternoon, that P made the decision to tell the rest of us what was going on. As you can imagine, those of us told first were shocked, angry, and utterly bewildered, amongst many other emotions. There were some of us that had suspected, and one person who had at one point over the last few months asked G outright if she was really 'Jimmy.' (Obviously, we now know that she was not.) G was given the opportunity to 'fess up, but instead she lied.
Something that I feel I should note here; on her Facebook account, G is listed as female, straight, and single. I have addressed the cultural appropriation aspect of all this with G directly, as it's one of the things about this entire situation that has deeply and personally offended me the most.
If you have been personally involved with this person on even a semi-regular basis, and you did not know any of this prior to reading of this post, then this post is for you. Whether or not G will have contacted you directly, I obviously can't say. Some may argue that I shouldn't even be making this post, but this is different than outing someone for their sexual orientation before they are ready to openly admit it themselves. This is outing someone who has lied--and, in turn, manipulated, deceived, and ultimately betrayed--a number of people in this fandom, not to mention the fact that they have kept up this identity for nearly ten years and could have done the same thing to many more people. That is the reason that I have made this post.
G has since apologised to several of us and we're going to leave it there. As of now (and this is as far as I know; I may not be accurately speaking for everyone), we've cut off all contact and don't plan to pursue a friendship further.
Once again, PLEASE do not send hateful messages of any kind, especially if you have not been personally involved with this person. There is no need for it whatsoever, as this has been dealt with 'behind the scenes' as far as possible, and this is where the matter needs to end.
