More thoughts inspired by Phillips' Tiptree bio
Because it starts off all sorts of interesting trains of thought that won't really fit into the parameters of a 1000-word review.
***
One is that thing, certainly not unique to Sheldon/Tiptree, of women asserting that they prefer the company of men to that of women. Which isn't, actually, about preferring the company of all XY people to all XX people: it's in fact about preferring what may be a fairly restricted group who are the 'fellow[s] of my own totem' (J Buchan, Greenmantle, on the Good German, Gaudian). And if a person has certain interests, or a certain outlook on life, it may be probable that the individuals who share them/this and with whom one can bond on that basis may tend to be more of one gender than the other: but not necessarily exclusively so. It's only tangentially and contingently about gender per se, more about social and cultural contexts.
***
I also wonder if anyone has done a study of individuals who got turned into literary characters by their parents or other care-taking adults (as Alice was by her mother in the books about their African explorations), and whether there are common factors in the damage this can do. Christopher Robin Milne wrote an autobiography which as I recollect was quite embittered about being irrevocably connected with soft toys, saying his prayers, and going down to the Palace with Alice. Perhaps the sad fates of the Llewellyn Davies brothers were not entirely due to their being the basis for P Pan and Lost Boys, but one wonders if it contributed. Cedric Hodgson Burnett as the model for Little Lord Fauntleroy? I'm sure there are others.