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The Tiptree award is getting renamed!
Oct. 13th, 2019 07:01 pmThe Tiptree award, dedicated to "encouraging the exploration & expansion of gender" is now to be called the Otherwise Award.
Background (TW for ableism): James Tiptree, Jr. was the penname of Alice Sheldon, one of the greatest writers (and quite possibly the greatest female writer) of early and mid-century SF/F. Sheldon was a brilliant writer; she also suffered from severe depression and killed herself and her disabled husband Huntingdon Sheldon. Whether it was a suicide pact, murder/suicide, or something in between, is debated; Sheldon's biographer lays out what is known and how the story tends to be told in ways that distort the truth here.
Disabled people have been uncomfortable with the name since the award's inception, given the standard ableist murder-suicide narrative, and in the wake of the Campbell renaming a call went out to rename this one as well. I'm glad the award has been renamed, and I'm thankful the Motherboard (as the group that governs the award is named) have been thoughtful and empathetic in their response to the controversy and their decision to change the name.
Here's a thoughtful piece on the name change from M.L. Clark, a past recipient of the award whose knee-jerk reaction was to want to keep the original name: Letting Go of Our “Heroes”: Ongoing Humanist Training and the (Ex-)James Tiptree, Jr. Award
Background (TW for ableism): James Tiptree, Jr. was the penname of Alice Sheldon, one of the greatest writers (and quite possibly the greatest female writer) of early and mid-century SF/F. Sheldon was a brilliant writer; she also suffered from severe depression and killed herself and her disabled husband Huntingdon Sheldon. Whether it was a suicide pact, murder/suicide, or something in between, is debated; Sheldon's biographer lays out what is known and how the story tends to be told in ways that distort the truth here.
Disabled people have been uncomfortable with the name since the award's inception, given the standard ableist murder-suicide narrative, and in the wake of the Campbell renaming a call went out to rename this one as well. I'm glad the award has been renamed, and I'm thankful the Motherboard (as the group that governs the award is named) have been thoughtful and empathetic in their response to the controversy and their decision to change the name.
Here's a thoughtful piece on the name change from M.L. Clark, a past recipient of the award whose knee-jerk reaction was to want to keep the original name: Letting Go of Our “Heroes”: Ongoing Humanist Training and the (Ex-)James Tiptree, Jr. Award
