Summary
The twins in X's class, Peggy and Joe, begin sharing their toys with each other: Peggy takes an interest in Joe's hockey skates, and Joe takes an interest in Peggy's cookbooks. Their parents are enraged, and they call an emergency meeting of the school Parent's Association. They all decide that X is disruptive and that X should be examined by a professional. If the psychiatrist determines that X is a boy, X will have to obey all the boys' rules. If X is a girl, X will have to obey all the girls' rules.
The Joneses are dismayed to hear the news, but the Instruction Manual assures them that this was bound to happen eventually. They consent to have X examined by a psychiatrist. X and the psychiatrist are in the exam room for a very long time. The psychiatrist asks X a number of questions that X answers, and everyone – parents and Other Children – are waiting outside to hear the results.
When the psychiatrist comes out of the room, he looks like he has been crying. He tells everyone that X is "just about the least mixed-up child I've ever examined!" (113). The Other Children are ecstatic, but the parents are confused. The psychiatrist explains that one day, everyone will know what X is, and they won't need a psychiatrist to tell them.
The Joneses have another baby. When the Other Children go to play with X, they ask what the baby is. X respond, "It's a Y!" (113).
Analysis
The final section of the story is interested in portraying the stark difference between the Other Children and their parents, or children and adults more generally. While the Other Children are initially curious about X, they ultimate come to embrace X and are inspired by X's way of life. Their parents, by contrast, are confused and disturbed by X, worried that X will negatively influence their own children. Through this parent-child dynamic, the story suggests that children are, because of their innocence and relatively untainted state, more tolerant and welcoming of new ideas. Parents (or adults) become the central antagonists of the story, as they represent the affects that society has on people over a long period of time. To the parents, gender is absolute – one is either a boy or a girl – but to the children, who are still developing understandings of identity, gender is fluid and playful. Through the figures of the antagonistic parents, the story showcases how thoroughly society attempts to make gender, and other markers of difference, a serious concern.
Of course, by the end of the story, it is X who is victorious, as the psychiatrist determines that X is mentally, emotionally, and socially stable. The story ultimately reverses its initial structure, as the absurdism of the beginning (the "Xperiment") is treated as normal, while the notion that gender is well-defined becomes the absurd conclusion. Additionally, the psychiatrist’s conclusion also suggests that considering gender as absolute can be, in fact, the cause of one's problems. When he says that X is "the least mixed-up child I've ever Xamined," he is implying that X's genderlessness (what we would today refer to as "nonbinary,") is precisely what makes X such a remarkable and healthy child. Despite deeper understandings of nonbinary individuals today, this was a profound suggestion to make in 1972, when the story was originally published.
