Which is the whole point of the article: when feelings take precedence over truth and knowledge, science is at threat.
The problem with this logic is that it can't be disagreed with. If I accept the premise, then you're off the hook for evidencing your claim - like you say, honest debate is now impossible. If I don't accept the premise, then I'm clearly wrong, and therefore part of the group who put feelings over truth and knowledge, and therefore reasoned discussion with me is pointless.
But in neither scenario can I get a reasoned debate. Ironically, you've built a situation where your feelings trump logical argument. You only need to say "I believe science to be at threat" (or perhaps just "science is at threat", because "I believe" is always implicit in these sorts of statements without argumentation), and any response I give to you, positive or negative, will only confirm your position.
To me, the central claim here is that it is now unacceptable to teach that sex is purely binary. But as far as I can tell, medically speaking, sex isn't binary (although heavily bimodal), and biologically speaking sex as a binary is a useful model as long as you recognise the caveats. So I don't think the author's central claim holds true. Which to me breaks apart most of the argument. The rest of the article seems to be examples of students doing things that other people disagree with, which is surely the greatest prerogative a student has, and has been happening for millennia. If science is at threat because students are uppity then I think we have different definitions of the word "threat" (as well as, potentially, the word "sex").
Seems like a threat.
Sex being binary (and the author carefully distinguishes between sex and gender) based on the size of gametes was simply one example. Other examples are discussed in the article:
- the inability to use the terms male and female
- fear of mentioning historical figures that are white and male to students
- teaching the concepts of sexual conflict, kin selection, heritability
- research about sexual selection and cultural differences
- NIH is denying scientists access to data if their research appears to be "stigmatizing"
> But this is obviously not the only definition we have for sex.
It's the only definition that matters when it comes to the field of biology.
The people who insist that sex is a continuum of some sort are getting confused with sex and sex-linked traits. As an example of the latter, consider testosterone levels. If you sample a random population of humans and plot this, it shows a bimodal distribution.
Some will argue that this demonstrates sex is a continuum, but what it really shows is two discrete populations that have an average difference between them: males and females.
As an example: a man with lower testosterone than most other men is not less male, or more female. He's just a male with below-average testosterone levels. The value of this hormonal trait doesn't define or alter his sex.
The author seems to be talking about sex in terms of gametes - i.e. sperm and eggs. They make the claim that there is an absolute sex difference between male and female sexes in terms of this gamete structure. I am happy to take them on their word on this point.
But this is obviously not the only definition we have for sex. Individuals in a gonochoric species have a sex that in most cases corresponds to the gametes that they can produce, but this is not absolute. In humans, we know that intersex and possibly even hermaphroditic individuals can exist: these people certainly do not conform to a perfectly binary sex distinction. So clearly there is a definition of sex - and a widely used one at that - where the author is incorrect, and human sexes are more complicated than a perfect binary split.
This obviously doesn't invalidate the rest of the article, but it does suggest that some of the issue may lie in communication rather than oppression. For example, the author links to the "gender unicorn" model, but this fairly plainly discusses sex as a medical phenomenon (where it is typically assigned at birth, corresponds to reproductive organs, and where some people will not clearly fall in one category or another). This is presumably not being used by the same people studying evolutionary biology, where sex is an expression of gamete-based reproduction and - at least at a population level - binary. (Or at least, if it is, I imagine it will be within a specific context.)
Looking through some of the evidence linked by the article, this seems to be the case. For example, the article links statements from scientific groups claiming that sex is a continuum, but the statements are very clearly in response to decisions that would affect medical care for humans (where it would be incorrect to assume a strict distinction - if anything, medicine is the study of exceptions to the norm), and do not in principle disagree with that continuum being bimodal in respects to gamete-based reproduction.
Similarly, the author cites another article that they believe restricts discussion on reproduction to species that don't have binary sex. But my reading of the same article is (a) that it is exclusively focused on educating students (rather than wider scientific discussion), and (b) arguing for more examples rather than fewer to help students understand that reproduction can be much more complex than the traditional "sexual/asexual" model that they are often taught before university.
I am not in academia, so ultimately I can't tell the author that what they're experiencing isn't true. But as someone reading their article, I came away with the impression that the author would do well to read through some of the sources they cite with a more open mind, and attempt to understand why some people are concerned about biological gender in humans being restricted to a binary state.