X, a fabulous child's story

A topical story from Ms Magazine in 1972, in which Ms and Mr Jones are selected to raise a baby without gender labels or stereotypes, as a secret psycho-social “Xperiment” [sic]. The baby isn’t a boy or a girl, but an X. The story makes its points with a gentle touch and a heartwarming, if predictable, narrative arc.

In the 2020s, trying to minimise the effects of gender stereotypes is mainstream, even if keeping a child’s gender private until they can decide is more niche.

Image: Cartoon of little X, assailed by competing rules for girls and boys, by Joe Blevins (Source)

Nevertheless, in the 10 years since my now 30-year old kid told us they were non-binary gender, I have seen a broad change in knowledge and acceptance of gender show more diversity, among all age groups, which I find heartening - though I look at the speed of rollback across the Atlantic and worry.

An interesting aspect of this is that although the adoptive parents are fully committed to the idea of raising a child without and beyond gender (and carefully study the very lengthy instruction manual), the impetus is from detached scientists.

Pronouns

X is referred to as “it”, even when they are old enough for school. This jarred for me, even though it’s normal in my idiolect to refer to a baby as “it”. Language is wonderfully strange.

• If you struggle with singular “they” on grammatical grounds, see my review of Bongiovanni and Jimerson’s A Quick & Easy Guide to They/Them Pronouns HERE.

• For a much broader, but highly readable, look at the broad spectrums of not just sex and gender, but relationships, bodies, emotions, and thinking, see Alex Iantaffi and Meg-John Barker’s Life Isn’t Binary, which I reviewed HERE.

How I found this story

I’ve been listening to X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story on BBC Radio 4 HERE and other podcast platforms. Jill Lepore, a history professor at Harvard, explores parallels between Muskism and sci-fi he has identified with:
• Batman, The Dark Knight (fighting or advocating fascism)
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (technocracy, crypto, and “extreme capitalism”)
• Planet B (catastrophism, PayPal, SpaceX, Mars, extra-terrestrial capitalism)
• Iron Man/Tony Stark (Tesla saving the world)
• The Dogefather (crypto again),
• Baby X (X men (one of whom his trans daughter was named after), and X (one of his children with Grimes), and this story)
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers ('woke mind virus', anti-trans, Cold War)
• The Terminator (robots and AI)

Read or watch it

• You can read the full version of X: A Fabulous Child’s Story HERE.

• You can watch a 10-minute animation by Brendan Bradley HERE. It strikes a darker tone, in part because the tiny school children look preternaturally old, and also because of the narrator. show less

Cute little children's story about gender nonconformity and social freedom. Nowadays we'd probably say "they" instead of "it" when referring to X, as calling a child "it" sounds a little bit weird, but hey this was 1972 so who can really complain. I think the real hero of the story are the overalls: a true and enduring icon of nonbinary fashion for decades.

really impressive take on gender and gender nonconformity in a kids book for the early 1970s. love the illustrations.