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Gender Performance and Identity

Biological gender is defined as "physical attributes such as external genitalia, sex chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, and internal reproductive structures. At birth, it is used to assign sex, that is, to identify individuals as male or female.”Alice Sheldon’s gender was female, but she performed as a male both through her professional and personal writings. Gender performance is how “people externally communicate their gender identity to others through behavior, clothing, haircut, voice, and other forms of presentation.” Gender displacement and the reversal of gender roles were common themes in Tiptree’s stories and throughout their many professional careers, Sheldon used many names;Tiptree being the most well-known. Others included Alice Hastings Bradley, Major Alice Davey, Alli B. Sheldon, Dr. Alice B. Sheldon, Raccona Sheldon, and Alli. 

In the late 1960s, Sheldon began to write science fiction. Their first published short story was "Birth of a Salesman" in the March 1968 issue of Analog Science Fact & Fiction, edited by John W. Campbell. Three more followed that year in If and Fantastic.^[1]  

Sheldon adopted the pseudonym of James Tiptree Jr. in 1967. The name "Tiptree" came from a branded jar of marmalade. The "Jr." was their husband's idea. Biographer Julie Phillips observed that the "Tiptree" persona allowed them to write things that Alice Sheldon could not. In an interview, Sheldon later noted, "A male name seemed like good camouflage. I had the feeling that a man would slip by less observed. I've had too many experiences in my life of being the first woman in some damned occupation."^[8] The Tiptree pseudonym allowed Sheldon to write in a time when male authors could expect more success in the realm of science fiction. According to her biographer, Julie Phillips, “No one had ever seen or spoken to the owner of this voice. He wrote letters, warm, frank, funny letters, to other writers, editors, and science fiction fans.” In his letters to fellow writers such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Joanna Russ, he would present himself as a feminist man; however, Sheldon did not present as male in person. Writing was a way to escape a male dominated society, themes Tiptree explored in the short stories later collected in Her Smoke Rose Up Forever. One story in particular offers an excellent illustration of these themes. “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" follows a group of astronauts who discover a future Earth whose male population has been wiped out; the remaining females have learned to get along just fine in their absence. 

 Sheldon successfully maintained this pseudonym until the late 1970s, partly because, although "Tiptree" was widely known to be a pen name, Tiptree's critics, readers, and correspondents assumed that its use was intended to protect the professional reputation of an intelligence community official. For instance, science fiction author and editor Robert Silverberg, wrote, "It has been suggested that Tiptree is female, a theory that I find absurd, for there is to me something ineluctably masculine about Tiptree's writing.”

 After the death of their mother in 1976, "Tiptree" mentioned in a letter that "his" mother, also a writer, had died in Chicago — details that led inquiring fans to find the obituary, with its reference to Alice Sheldon. Soon, all was revealed. Once the initial shock over, Alli wrote to one of her closest friends, Ursula K. Le Guin, confessing their identity. Sheldon wrote, “I never wrote you anything but the exact truth, there was no calculation or intent to deceive, other than the signature which over 8 years became just another nickname; everything else is just plain me. The thing is, I am a 61-year-old woman named Alice Sheldon — nickname Alli – solitary by nature but married for 37 years to a very nice man considerably older, who doesn’t read my stuff but is glad I like writing.”

4. Creator Russ, Joanna, 1937-. Joanna Russ papers. Dates 1968-1989. Collection Number Coll 261.Repository University of Oregon Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives. UO Libraries--SPC, 1299

5. Jr Tiptree, James .;D Smith, Jeffrey. "Her Smoke Rose Up Forever". San Francisco, Calif. : Tachyon Publications ; [Chicago, Ill.] : Distributed to the trade by Independent Publishers Group, 2004. Edition/Format: Print book : Fiction : English : 1st ed