Indeed, it is a gorgeous story.
We use the excuse of biological dissimilarities to get around the fact that most archetypes we've constructed have been artificially constructed -- gender, relationships, and socialization all revolve around certain attributes that are very arbitrary and have little, if anything, to do with biological characteristics. The controversial "wire mother" experiment carried out by Harry Harlow[1] proves this to some extent.
Another story much like the one in the NYT article, if you're interested: http://www.npr.org/2015/02/20/387309723/pain-but-no-regrets-...