Lee Hoffman Hoax

From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959

was not really meant as a hoax. When Leeh entered fandom she didn't bother to state her sex, which many assumed on the strength of the first name and the well-known predominance of he-fans to be male. Not till she appeared at Nolacon was the truth generally realized.

If not actually a hoax, it was a deliberate obfuscation.

Hoffman, whose nickname, Lee, was short for Shirley, went to some trouble to keep her gender a secret, reportedly going so far as to tell people that the then-current Korean War draft had not been a problem “because I couldn't pass the physical,” leading people to think she was crippled or ill.

She recollected in Fanhistorica 1 (May 1976, p. 10):

Lee is an ambiguous name. Non-committal. Throughout my first year of fan publishing, I made a point of never making a point of being female. This was, indeed, on purpose. It wasn’t too difficult. I was in an isolated section of the country, in face-to-face contact with only a couple of other fans. I swore a few close associates, like Shelby Vick, to secrecy. I let the rest of Q’s readers draw their own conclusions. In typical male chauvinistic manner, most concluded that the editor of a successful fanzine must be male. 

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