The following is excerpted from McGuire’s new book, “Sex Scandal: The Drive to Abolish Male and Female“

Feminists in the 1960s and 70s argued that men and women are not inherently different. The many apparent differences between the sexes — beyond the undeniable anatomical ones — are simply the result of gender roles people are taught to fulfill, not of their natures as men or women. This was the era when parents were told that their daughters would be just as happy playing with toy trucks as with dolls and that making the switch would help end sexism and liberate girls for a better future. Women sought to detach themselves from the aspects of womanhood they found limiting, especially their fertility.