# When was it first suspected that James Tiptree Jr. was a woman? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 7, 2009, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-it-first-suspected-that-james-tiptree-jr-was-a-woman/484805 "2009-02-07T15:24:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-it-first-suspected-that-james-tiptree-jr-was-a-woman/484805/41 "2009-02-09T14:13:04Z")
How can you be savvy enough about SF to have an opinion on Tiptree, a Cafe regular - a '99er, no less , and not know that \*\*Exapno \*\*& \*\*Chuck \*\*are/have been plugged into fandom for decades? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-it-first-suspected-that-james-tiptree-jr-was-a-woman/484805/42 "2009-02-09T14:27:01Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’d say your continued hostility is a pretty good example of what I said. Not to belabor the point but I said right from the start that I was guessing and had no direct knowledge of what was known back in the seventies. Wendall and Chuck and you all wanted to argue with me but none of you were claiming any direct knowledge either so I figured my guess was as good as yours. Your original contribution to this debate was No. You were guessing. We were providing evidence. There is a difference. > [@](#): > > To be quite blunt, nobody in this thread has really convinced me that they’re an expert on James Tiptree and their word on her is beyond question. I figure everyone is speculating about something that happened over thirty years and they have only heard about second hand. (I’ll even concede that you seem to be the closest to having direct knowledge.) But I’ve admitted that about myself all along. No. In simple words. WE. ARE. NOT. SPECULATING. We are pointing out evidence. The difference is that you’re guessing based on lack of knowledge and we are answering based on knowledge. We’re supposed to be fighting ignorance here, not reveling in it. Now, do YOU have any evidence to back your speculation? I have several times made the statement “no one has ever said they knew Tiptree was female prior to the news broke.” All you need to do is list one person who states otherwise. If you have a name, please list it here. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-it-first-suspected-that-james-tiptree-jr-was-a-woman/484805/43 "2009-02-09T14:34:12Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Then he got into a tangent about “there was some suspicion” that Tiptree was a woman and there were “some people suggesting she was” but nobody “knew”. Which seems more than a little ambiguous to me to support the claim that it was a complete surprise a year later. Because, like you, the people speculating had no proof of their assertion. Some were even made as a joke. They, unlike you, realized they had no evidence and just put it forth as a wild hypothesis with no basis in fact. When the evidence appeared, of course, it turned out that they were right. But it’s like any bit of speculation: on rare occasions, it might just hit the mark. Jonathan Swift mention that Mars had two satellites before that was known, but it just happened to be a lucky guess. Things like that happen. The main difference in that case and yours is that at the time there was no evidence either way. For your assertion, there is evidence from multiple sources that disproves it. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-it-first-suspected-that-james-tiptree-jr-was-a-woman/484805/44 "2009-02-09T16:02:28Z")
I repeat. If you want evidence, lay out in detail what evidence you are looking for, what will satisfy you, and how you think that evidence might be found. I haven’t seen anything like that yet. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-it-first-suspected-that-james-tiptree-jr-was-a-woman/484805/45 "2009-02-09T20:32:12Z")
> [@susan](#): > > King had already written as King by then? He may have had a contractual arrangement that he needed an exception to? As I recall it, King created the Bachman persona after someone made the remark that he was so famous he could basically get his laundry list published. King started wondering if it was just his name selling stuff, and since he wanted to play around with some ideas he wasn’t sure would be actually, y’know, GOOD, he decided to let “Richard Bachman” out to see if he could get the books sold on their own merits. It’s funny–I have a first edition of “Thinner” that I just picked up in the bookstore and started browsing through. I called my husband over and said, “I have no idea what’s going on here, but this was written by Stephen King.” He thought I was fulla crap but I definitely had the last laugh some months later. King did nothing to disguise his own extremely idiosyncratic style for the Bachman books and I’m surprised it didn’t come out sooner. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-it-first-suspected-that-james-tiptree-jr-was-a-woman/484805.md?page=2)