When I submitted the final draft of “Melancholy Femininity, Obsessive–Compulsive Masculinity” to Studies in Gender and Sexuality, I was nine months pregnant with my first baby. As I was writing the paper, I wondered if I might feel differently about the whole thing–the notion of the mother as the primary attachment figure or the first love, the impact of this on gender identification–once I experienced it all in the light of day rather than in the library stacks at night. Just before writing this reply to Balsam (this issue) and Salamon (this issue), I celebrated my baby's first birthday, and while I find that both Balsam and Salamon raise some very important points, my lived experience over the past 12 months only increases my confidence about the work I produced a year ago. That said, I thank both Balsam and Salamon for their thorough and challenging comments and, of course, they were both right about the need to consider individual differences alongside sex differences. I welcome