On Thursday, beloved member of the #Resistance Dr. Eugene Gu was accused by a former girlfriend of having created a fake Twitter account in order to sexually harass her. Here’s what she alleged via Twitter:
I’m freaking out now knowing my ex boyfriend was tormenting me with a fake female account. Sending me DMs obsessing over him, asking intimate details about my sex life, and then trying to convince me they slept together. I’m going to be sick.
Ok, it’s time to finally come out with my story. I kept it inside because I thought I was overreacting and maybe that I was just being irrational but now with new evidence I know that isn’t the case. I’m coming out so future females are not manipulated.
Early 2017, still hurting from the breakup of McPager (the cardiologist I dated) I was contacted by a surgeon. I had no idea who he was but he was quick to tell me he had been on the news. He said he found me through #girlmedtwitter and was impressed with how open I was.
He started texting me frequently and it wasn’t long before he said we’d be Twitter’s power couple. Now I came on Twitter to vent and have friends, not become powerful, but I liked the idea of being a power couple with a surgeon who told me he could see us being married.
Now it all was happening so fast, but coming off a relationship with McPager who was so emotionally distant it was nice to feel wanted and have someone speak so clearly about their intentions with me.
Although it wasn’t long until he told me to not trust people on Twitter. He told me the other ladies of #girlmedtwitter would try to steal the credit of hashtag and leave me out of it, he had seen it before. Something I never thought of, while I defended them a seed was planted
He constantly was asking me for RTs, at the time I had more followers than him and he jumped on whatever trend would give him the best numbers. He never cared about the actual issue, it was all just a way to get more followers. I kinda became uneasy with his need for followers
However I ignored it because he called and texted all the time, even when he was on shift or after he had a long overnight. I felt special to have his undivided attention.
Around this time I started getting messages from a girl who claimed to be an ENT surgeon. I always have looked up to doctors and she was friendly. The conversation was light and she said she found me through one of the times he RT’d me
Things soon became really weird with her. She told me she saw him on the news and thought he was so cute. She had never slept with his ethnicity before and she was curious. She had printed his photo and put it on her wall to admire. She said she could have any man she wanted
All this time she was prying if I was dating this surgeon, I told her no because I don’t want my dating life all over Twitter until I’m ready to post about it. She then said he was going to be her next conquest. Though I always had an eerie sense she knew we were dating
I tried to ignore this obsessed fan messaging me, but it made me feel extremely uneasy. However he still seemed nice, calling me his baby and future. Although sometimes the way he complained about work confused me. He claimed to be the victim of very normal hospital occurances
I tried to tell him to get along with his fellow coworkers or he’d cause more strife than necessary, but he didn’t listen to me. I also warned him against posting badly about his university while he was still under contract because hello don’t bite the hand that feeds.
After a couple of months of talking he invited me to come see him and spend the weekend and celebrate Valentine’s day together. I was excited especially since he said I could come with him to work. Wow he must be serious about me if I get to meet his coworkers
I packed up all my things and dipped out of my med school to go see him. When I first met him it was ok, but he didn’t seem like the man who portrayed himself over the phone.
The first disappointment as I pulled my white coat out of the car was for him to tell me that he forgot to ask permission for me to shadow him at work. Ok, that’s fine, I brushed it off, there’s always a lot of red tape with medicine.
However I kept growing uneasy with his obsession with Twitter. All he would do as we ate lunch was have his face shoved into his phone asking me to RT certain things of his. I did willingly, wanting to be a good girlfriend.
More days passed, I hardly saw him due to his work schedule. It was mostly me sitting alone in his apartment playing on my computer waiting for him to come home. When he did he’d promptly tell me how many more followers he had before falling asleep.
When Valentines Day arrived, I was excited. He actually wasn’t working the night shift so we were going on an official date. I put on my best dress and spent forever perfecting my hair and makeup.
He got back to his place visibly upset because his advisor had given him a clear warning to quit tweeting badly about the university or there would be repercussions to his actions.
We went out on our date, to a pizza parlor. He spent the entire time talking about himself, either with how awful his life was or how smart he was and how he deserved so much more than his now millionaire classmates.
I felt like I was only there to be an audience to his diatribe. I was completely turned off to this arrogant yet victim mentality. I felt gross.
When we get back to his apartment he starts to make a move on me, but tells me we have to keep it a secret. I tell him if that’s the case I want no part of it. I move to get up off the bed (his only furniture besides a dining room table). He pulls me down and pins me in place.
He is on top of me, groping me, trying to kiss me as I keep trying to get up and telling him no. Moving my face away from his kisses. He kept saying he wanted to have unprotected sex so he could get me pregnant so I could never leave him.
I continued to fight him off until eventually he tired himself out and passed out. I got up, ran from the bed, locking myself in the bathroom, turning on the shower so he wouldn’t wake up to the sound of me crying. I called McPager in tears asking why men do this, he didn’t know
Eventually I grew exhausted from crying. It was late and I couldn’t make the 4hr drive home. I told myself it was just a weird quirk of his and I was overreacting and went to sleep.
The next morning we went to brunch. I didn’t talk much, he kept talking about how I’d meet his mom soon and how much she’d love me. I tried to convince myself what happened the night before wasn’t as big of a deal as I made it to be.
However I found myself counting down the minutes until I could leave, profoundly annoyed by his presence as he shoved his face into Twitter over brunch.
After I left the DMs from the girl got more intense, asking me my sexual history and going into graphic detail of her own exploits. Her want for the surgeon seemed to be growing. This only added to my confusion I was feeling about the entire ordeal.
All the while he was messaging me with screenshots of my #DearFutureHusband tweets telling me he was going to be that husband for me in the future. It didn’t bring me the same joy that it used to. I felt dirty and I was distressed by the messages I kept getting from this girl
He was supposed to visit me in my city. Something I told him I needed to prove to me he wasn’t just using me for the RTs. Why I needed it, I don’t know, maybe to prove to myself he was genuine and not some creepy self absorbed guy
On the day he was supposed to come he told me he was called into court on the coast. It sounded like BS and I told him so. He blocked me from talking to him. Soon I got a message from that girl telling me he had called her upset and she was going to fly to meet him
The next day she sent me disgustingly graphic details of their exploits including answering the phone when his ex called so she could hear their noises. I was disgusted. I contacted him on Twitter and he told me she was making things up and they only had dinner
I felt so sick and confused. This guy was a surgeon at a school I would have loved to be apart of, there was no way he could be a bad guy. Right? Eventually I couldn’t take the messages from this girl about him anymore and I told him it was best if we were just friends
Some how he had manipulated the situation to make ME feel guilty of my trust issues about our relationship. I didn’t know what to think all I knew was I didn’t want to continue with all of this.
Soon after he was sending me DMs bragging that he was dating a girl much younger than him. He bragged she was rich and had lots of Twitter followers, way more than me. I felt sick to my stomach. I prayed he wouldn’t pin her to the bed and force her to get pregnant
He convinced me I felt that way because I was jealous, was I? He was a successful surgeon who I ended things with and if this supposed famous girl wanted him, had I messed up?
Anyway I just recently found out that girl who was DMing me was actually him and now instead of being afraid of obsessive fans coming after me I feel compelled to expose the truth so no one else has to go through what I did
If anyone is wondering why I didn’t block “her” before it got this far. “Her” account legitimately scared me. “She” posted such vile things and the fact she was so obsessed with the surgeon made me worried if I blocked her she’d attack me on her timeline like she did others
Now he’s threatening to expose me (before I blocked him). Trying to gaslight me saying he didn’t do those things. I know I’m not as powerful as him or have as many followers as him but what I’ve told is the truth.
However if he does expose me it will show 1) I was a stupid 2nd year med student who thought a surgeon was into her and believed his lies we were dating 2) I remained friends w my abuser because I didn’t want to believe what had happened was real & he made me believe I was crazy
And 3) Yes I did hook up with him before the events of Valentine’s Day, but we were napping and I wake up to him on top of me and it was over as soon as it began. I didn’t have much time to process it. I know men like to use that as evidence to mean I was willing later
I was not. The Valentine’s Day date showed me how self absorbed he was it completely turned me off, especially when he told me we had to keep our relationship a secret. I did not want to be with him. I told him that clearly. He still forced me to fight him off until he passed out
He still pretended to be a woman on another account to harass me and make me uncomfortable. My want to try to convince myself a year ago that what he did to me was normal so I didn’t have to admit what a fool I was doesn’t make what he did any less wrong.
This wild story prompted Gu to respond with his own version on his Twitter feed. There, he essentially argued that he didn’t want to have sex with this woman because she was fat and unattractive, and thus conjured up another Twitter account to alienate her from him.
Here’s his story:
While incredibly hard for me, I’m going to tell you my full side of the story. I shared all the text messages, voicemails, and other evidence with a Washington Post reporter who, if it comes to it, can verify all the details I am about to describe below. There’s proof. (THREAD)
In February 2017, I met a girl on Twitter. It was a few months after my then-fiancé and I ended our relationship, leaving me heartbroken. But I began talking to this new girl and we seemed to click. Soon I learned she lived four hours away in Tennessee and we made plans to meet.
She drove over to see me but when she first stepped out of her car I noticed she looked much different than in her pictures. I didn’t feel any physical attraction to her, but I appreciated her effort to drive over and I thought we could be good friends.
I spent the first night in the hospital and she stayed in my apartment by herself. I told her I felt bad I couldn’t have dinner with her. But I also felt a bit relieved that we didn’t have to spend the night together—especially when she made sexually suggestive comments to me.
When I came home to my apartment the next morning, I was tired and needed to sleep. There was only one queen-sized bed and when I crawled under the covers to sleep she soon came over to sleep next to me. As I tried to doze off, she began reaching down with her right hand to…
. ..touch the outside of my pants in my crouch area. She kept rubbing the area trying to give me an erection while I kept my eyes closed pretending not to notice and just falling asleep. I didn’t want this. But I also didn’t want to create any awkward situation by rebuffing her.
She took off my pants and tried to go on top of me to have sex but she is a lot bigger and heavier than me and I couldn’t easily breathe. I wasn’t putting up any resistance but I felt disgusted. We started to go sideways and I tried to picture my then-fiancé but I still…
…couldn’t maintain an erection for long and we stopped. I ended up sleeping and so did she. When we woke up, we got something to eat at a restaurant before I had to spend that night in the hospital again. I felt really disgusted but tried to hide it and move on.
The next morning was Valentine’s Day, which was my day off. I didn’t want to spend the morning sleeping with her again so I think I made some excuse to be in the hospital and slept in a call room. We then had dinner that day at 312 Pizza Company where we also ordered a few beers.
During dinner, I distinctly remember her saying that she couldn’t wait until we got home so that “we could fuck.” I dreaded it, but resigned myself to the fact that it was probably unavoidable. Luckily, I was so sleepy when we got back that I just fell asleep. We didn’t have sex.
She went home the next morning and we continued to communicate in a friendly manner on Twitter and by text. We’d strategize together about how to make our tweets go viral, and at the time her account was much bigger than mine. So I looked up to her and her #MedTwitter community.
That’s the only time we met in person but soon our Twitter chats devolved into periodic unwanted sexual advances from her. She would also request over and over for us to meet again or for me to visit her. I did my best to finds ways around this and avoid another sexual encounter.
She even started leaving very uncomfortable voicemails on my phone, including when she would masturbate and make moaning and orgasm noises while breathing heavily. It was an unwanted sexual advance that really bothered me. I didn’t know what to do.
Around this time in March, she demanded that I visit her over the weekend. I didn’t want to go but she was insistent. I was afraid of rejecting her because she seemed like someone would take revenge on me on Twitter with her much bigger account (I had 2k to her 5k followers).
So I made the excuse that my lawyer summoned me to Washington DC that weekend because of how I admonished Congressman Jim Cooper at Vanderbilt about my Congressional subpoena. I wasn’t summoned but only wanted to avoid having to visit her and have sex again.
This is where Mary Laury comes in. In the beginning, it was an anonymous account people close to me created to address the trolling issues I was encountering from Trump supporters on Twitter. After a while I also shared access of this account to help combat the trolls.
I used the Mary Laury account not to harass or stalk her but to corroborate the fact that I would be in DC for the weekend. In hindsight this was immature of me and I regret the way I used it, but I was desperate to find a way for her to believe me that I was unable to visit her.
I intentionally used the burner account obnoxiously to turn her off from me and drive a wedge between us romantically. I wanted to somehow steer us into being just friends without her retaliating against me for rejecting her sexual advances. It was immature, but it worked.
Even after telling her I wanted to only be friends, she would continue leaving voicemails saying that she loves me or that she desperately misses me. These unwanted sexual and romantic advances were very intrusive and disruptive to my life. Girls can sexually harass guys too.
After a while, we thankfully grew apart and talked to each other less and less. I noticed that she followed me on Instagram and then unfollowed me after I started posting pictures of my current girlfriend on there. But there was otherwise minimal interaction.
After that, when I started tweeting about the July Effect for interns entering teaching hospitals all at once on July 1, it somehow angered the #MedTwitter community like a hive of bees. I then called out @DGlaucomflecken for a racist comment which angered her and the community.
That’s when all hell broke loose and she falsely accused me of sexual assault and other horrendous allegations. It pains me deeply to expose such private and embarassing details like this but I had to clear my name. Reporters were even asking me to comment on my sexual assault.
In summary, the #MeToo movement is not about women vs. men or men vs. women. It’s about all human beings who are victimized by sexual assault or sexual harassment. Men can be victimized by women too. And false accusations without due process is a weapon of terror.
Now he’s taking a break from Twitter.
As he always should have.
Because yuck.