What’s in a name?

[supergee]

I got into fandom in the 70s, and one of the new friends I liked the most was a nice old man named James Tiptree Jr. He wrote great stories, and he was fun to hang out with in the virtual world of zines. OK, so he was a lot younger than I am now, and…

I never suspected Tip’s actual gender, but fortunately I didn’t write well enough to come up with a phrase like “ineluctable masculinity” that would get me remembered for my mistake.

Gene Wolfe once said that he liked James Tiptree Jr. more than he liked Alice Sheldon, and I think he was onto something. Alice Sheldon was a human being who wanted to be a success in the manly, competitive world of business and to love women and was told she was unfit to do either for what we are finally are beginning to realize is a stupid reason. That attempt to be something other than what she was born to be was probably one of the reasons for that final murder/suicide.

But she managed to create James Tiptree Jr., the nice old man who wrote brilliant stories. I like to imagine a parallel universe where she was James Tiptree Jr.—had the career and then wrote the stories—and I’m glad we have an award appropriately named for that admirable figure.

Comments

[cmcmck]

'That attempt to be something other than what she was born to be'

Hey! I know that one! :o)

[lavendertook]

Under the liberatory message here that oppressing queer women, and making anyone have to present differently than they are in identity categories in order to be accepted is wrong, I'm getting a reading that feels less so.

How I'm reading this is that oppressed people like Alice Sheldon are less likable than their privileged, or fully enabled white guy personas, at least to white guys like Gene Wolfe, and maybe you? Maybe Gene Wolfe liked nice old white men like James Tiptree better than he liked a struggling Alice Sheldon, but I might feel differently because I could relate to Alice Sheldon better and like her more. I guess it comes down to, "Nice to whom, white guy?" in my reading, which I don't think is where you wanted to go with this.

And it makes me think about the likability issue and HRC, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamela Harris, as well as my own personal struggles. The way Jennifer and I felt sidelined and talked over in our NC sf/f writers community back in the early 90's is really connected with the entire planet being stuck in a Trumpian world now.

But I didn't know JT/AS had a zine and that you were friends with them through zines--that is very cool.

[redstapler]

I guess it comes down to, "Nice to whom, white guy?" in my reading, which I don't think is where you wanted to go with this.

This whole paragraph sums up my reaction to this post, which was more along the lines of this:



So, thank you kindly.

[cmcmck]

I'm trans of the earlier generation of campaigners (seventies).

I'm also white and I try at least to have the good grace to understand what a huge privilege that is.

Thank you for this! :o)

[sartorias]

Huh. The first Tiptree story I read, I was sure a woman had written it.

[mrissa]

Actually, this is exactly why I don't want awards named after people: because the immediate personal part of the discussion is there. Some of the "let's rename the Campbell after _____" suggestions were after people who had died very, very recently, and saying, "hey, your actual friend whom you loved did THIS NEGATIVE THING THAT I DO NOT WANT TO ENSHRINE AS AN AWARD" is really hard. Because then the conversation is, which is more important, the good or the bad? And that shouldn't have to be a question. They can coexist. Evaluating someone's legacy should mean acknowledging both, and everything in between...until we compress the legacy into the Yay Them Award.

John M. Ford was my friend, but I want to honor him by talking about his work and his life and, hell, his off-the-cuff jokes in the consuite, not by labeling something the FORD AWARD that will become part of the wallpaper of the genre but encourage us to think of him as a monolith instead of a complexity. There is literally no reason why we should have to vote thumbs up/thumbs down on a person--unless we set up things like award names that force us into doing so.

[minoanmiss]

This is an excellent point. *absorbs and contemplates*