Summary
A group of scientists decides that they want to conduct an experiment in which a child is raised without knowing their gender. This child is to be named X. The scientists search all around for the appropriate parents for X. Most parents want either a boy or a girl, but the Joneses are happy and excited to raise an X. The scientists put together a lengthy Instruction Manual for the Joneses to help them navigate any questions they might have about raising the child as an X.
When the Joneses bring Baby X home, many people come to see the baby. They ask whether X is a boy or a girl, and the Joneses simply reply, "it's an X." The family and friends soon grow uncomfortable visiting Baby X and they avoid the Joneses at all costs. Meanwhile, the Joneses consult the Instruction Manual to see the best ways to play with X – whether they should bounce X up and down or cuddle X, and whether they should tell X they are strong or whether they should tell X they are dainty. The Instruction Manual says that X "ought to be strong and sweet and active. Forget about dainty altogether" (109).
Analysis
One element of the story that readers might notice right away is the tone. The narrator of the story uses a tone that is at once straightforward and ironic. The events described at the beginning of the story – a group of scientists coming together for an experiment that costs roughly 23 billion dollars – read as a type of absurdist premise. There are few details provided other than that the scientists have put every effort into ensuring the experiment (referred to as "Xperiment" in the story) runs smoothly. Despite the unrealistic nature of the story's circumstances, however, the narrator presents the events in a straightforward, nonchalant way. This tone is emblematic of one of the story's major themes – that gender is performed rather than inscribed, and that a child without a gender is not an anomaly but instead a natural occurrence. The narrator treats the events of the story, and the events surroundings X's life, as perfectly normal.
However, other characters in the story perceive X and the Joneses as strange, foreign, and confusing. The narrator dedicates a significant portion of the story's exposition to delineating the difference between the Joneses – who not only want an X to raise but who, when they bring X home, continue to maintain that X is neither boy nor girl but an X – and the rest of the world. Family members abandon them, and neighbors start avoiding them after they fail to understand the Joneses' assertion that X is an X. Ironically, this simple statement – X is an X – is precisely what confuses everyone surrounding the Joneses. With this conflict, the narrator showcases how fully gender and gender difference has been engrained in society, and how anyone without a gender (or exhibiting qualities of both genders) is misunderstood and labeled as "other."
