Letters to the Editor
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Transgendered? Eh, maybe, maybe not...
You also have to consider that, in the era in which Alice Sheldon grew up, there was little or no frame of reference for a woman being attracted to other women. This was an era in which even most lesbians who were in relationships settled into pretty strict butch/femme roles (even several years ago, when I was explaining my sexual orientation to my mother, she asked me "Are you the man or the woman?") Within such a cultural paradigm, it's not difficult to understand why a woman attracted to other women would enjoy interacting with them while masquerading as a man.
There is a difference between gender identity and sexual orientation. My impression is that gender identity comes down to how you feel about yourself; sexual orientation regards how you feel about others (I have one transgender friend of mine, male-to-female, who was attracted to women while she identified as male and now identifies as lesbian). But, to the extent one defines oneself through interactions with others (which sounds like something Alice Sheldon probably struggled with), there's a lot of confusing overlap between the two, since we all still struggle with the concept of how a man could be attracted to a man or a woman to a woman without it reflecting upon their gender identity. It would have required a pretty talented and sophisticated psychotherapist to sort all this out for Ms. Sheldon, and unfortunately, I doubt any such mental health professionals were available to Ms. Sheldon during that era.