As a bookish child, I loved most of all an anthology of stories that sat high on my parents’ white bookshelves. At night, my siblings and I would gather on my littlest sister’s bed while one of my parents read to us.
Once I learned to read, I took to raising myself up on my tiptoes to borrow that book and carrying it to the nubbly lime green couch in the playroom.
One day I discovered a story I hadn’t read before — “X: A Fabulous Child’s Story,” a feminist classic by Lois Gould published in 1972.
In it, as part of a scientific experiment, a newborn is named X, the child’s gender kept secret. When a Ms. and Mr. Jones adopt X, they buy both girls’ toys and boys’ toys; they encourage X to develop traits both traditionally masculine and.