Thread by @sf_boswell

[Thread] For Pride month, I propose to you the romance between two feminist SF authors: Joanna Russ and James Tiptree Jr/ Alice B. Sheldon.

"Consider yourself well and truly propositioned... are you ready to have a mad adventure in your waning years? " 😭😭😭😭

The flirtation between Joanna Russ and James Tiptree Jr. is the perfect enemies to lovers story, and it needs to be a movie, or a miniseries.

Hollywood, call me.

Step one: Alice B. Sheldon starts publishing science fiction under the name "James Tiptree Jr."

Step two: Brilliant SF author and feminist firebrand Joanna Russ makes a name for herself in science fiction.

Step three: "Tiptree" starts sending fan mail to Russ.

Tiptree's attempt to make friends with Russ DOES NOT GO WELL at first. Russ thanks Tiptree very much but call "him" out on "his" sexism and says "I'm actually quite mean, and I don't think we'd make great friends."

Nevertheless, Tiptree and Russ do become friends - guarded friends, only through letters.

Russ kept calling Tiptree out for sexism (my favorite line - apologies for the cis-sexism "You Penis People are impossible")

At some point, Joanna Russ figured out something was "off" about her correspondent Tiptree, who seemed mighty interested in the dynamics of oppression. "Are you gay?" asked Russ? "No one's this interested in oppression who isn't oppressed themselves."

Tiptree's response to the "are you gay" query is basically "No not gay! Just love to write about bug sex. Lots and lots of bug sex."

Tiptree: "Just a very normal cis straight white man writing about sexism and bug sex in the 1970s. Ha ha!"

Russ: Okay, whatever.

Tiptree, meanwhile, was always worried about Russ - you have to show the world only "calmness and lucidity" to be safe in the world as a woman, Tiptree told her.

Which angered Russ greatly, as a woman who thought she was corresponding with a man.

At the same time, if ANYONE ELSE said ANYTHING negative about Russ to Tiptree, Tiptree WENT OFF.

"Russ is a genius. Russ is a better writer than me. Russ is fire. Russ is more elegant than silk. No you shut up. No, YOU'RE in love with her."

And then Russ comes out as a lesbian, and Tiptree both congratulates her and is like “I HAVE NO INTEREST IN SEX”

(Alice B. Sheldon was married to a man)

AND THEN, and this is the perfect cinematographic moment, Tiptree's secret - that's she's a woman - starts coming out.

So she calls Joanna Russ up on the phone.
Russ hears someone go: "Oh, you're going to hate me."
"Who is this?"
"This is James Tiptree Jr."

Anyway, chaos reigns in science fiction because JAMES TIPTREE JR. IS A LADY, but who cares about that, not me! I only care about flirting.

Because it turns out that Joanna Russ had been in love with "James Tiptree" all along (very annoyingly for her).

So they keep writing to each other, and at some point Alice (Allie) tells Joanna Russ "I guess you could call me a frustrated gay" but "I'm very old and will never love again."

and Russ immediately goes "Hi. I. love. old. women."

And Russ, because Russ has never had any chill, either as a feminist or a critic or a writer, just SAYS to Allie: "I was in love with you when you were 'James Tiptree Jr. and have been able to transfer that affection to Allie who is, after all, the same person." 😍😍😍😍

A bit later Allie/Tiptree finally writes: "I too, am a lesbian... I liked some men a lot, but from the beginning, before I knew anything, I knew it was girls and women who lit me up."

As soon as Allie/ Tiptree sends this letter, Russ invites her to Seattle. But Allie was having heart trouble, and couldn't come.

They kept exchanging letters until Allie/Tiptree's death in 1987, but they never met. 💔💔💔💔😭😭😭😭😭💔💔💔

I first read about this flirtation/ romance/ in Julie Phillips' sublime The Secret Life of Alice B. Sheldon (from which all these quotes are taken) when I was writing my undergrad thesis on feminist SF.

I never read about it anywhere else.

n.pr/2XPz6xp

The history of women in science fiction is so deeply queer, and it's a story that remains undertold in mainstream SF histories.

Another fun fact: "James Tiptree Jr." was flirting with Ursula Le Guin constantly in their letters.

My favorite and most heartbreaking moment is when Tiptree/Allie comes out to Le Guin as a woman in a letter:

"Ursula, Ursula, I am petrified... will I have any friends left?
Tip says goodbye to a very dear friend, and all that is hers."

And then Ursula Le Guin's response is everything you think LeGuin could do, and would do

"My Gethenian friend... It would take an extraordinarily small soul to resent so immense, so funny, so effective and fantastic and so ethical a put on."

One last moment of flirting: post-Tiptree gender reveal, Russ said her consciousness-raising group said Russ "talked too much"

Allie was like "YOU THINK?" and gave her lots of teasing names like "smoldering basilisk" and "receding ocean."

These two flirts.

"I am as certain you talk too much as I am certain the earth moves" is basically Allie/Tiptree-speak for "oh no, you're much too hot"