X: A Fabulous Child's Story Essay Questions

How does school shape the children’s ideologies about gender?

In describing X's first day of school, the narrator says, “The Joneses were really worried about this, because school was even more full of rules for boys and girls, and there were no rules for Xses. The teacher would tell boys to form one line, and the girls to form another line. There would be boys' games and girls' games, and boys' secrets and girls' secrets" (110). Fixed structures in the school compel the children to identify as either female and male. A child like X who does not belong to either is not accommodated because such queerness has not been embraced by the society of which the school is part. The school covertly endorses the ideology that normal genders are either male or female.

What perspective on gender does the story endorse?

When X is upset after their first day of school, X and the Joneses turn to the Instruction Manual, which reads, “What did you Xpect? Other Children have to obey all the silly boy- girl rules, because their parents taught them to. Lucky X-you don’t have to stick to the rules at all! All you have to do is be yourself" (111). This moment showcases both how socially engrained notions of the gender binary are (the scientists frame it as "rules" that must be followed) as well as the story's ultimate goal of encouraging children to simply be themselves, regardless of gender.

What is the fate of the parents in the story and what do they represent?

At the end of the story, the psychiatrist concludes that nothing is wrong with X and that X is indeed the "least mixed-up" child he has ever examined. The other parents are shocked at the news, but they eventually accept it and even invite the Joneses to be part of the Parental Committee. At the end of the story, these parents represent those who may not understand queerness but who are nonetheless accepting of queer people in their lives, presenting a realistic but hopeful version of tolerance for those who different from themselves.