'Doctorate-carrying scientist' (they/them) officially rules that concept of only 2 biological sexes is BS

If San Francisco isn’t the LGBTQ capital of the United States, it’s pretty darn close. So it makes sense that this guest opinion piece by a scientist — with a PhD, thank you very much! — who argues that science says that sex and gender not binary.

OPINION: Ask many Americans these days and they will insist there are only two sexes available for humans to inhabit: male or female. As a doctorate-carrying scientist, however, I attest that this is false, writes Ash Zemenick. https://t.co/fUN59FqIKo

— San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle) June 1, 2023

Here’s how Ash Zemenick’s (they/them) piece wraps up:

Fine. All those ways we categorize sex are not binary, you may be agreeing or conceding. But gender surely is, yes? Men are from Mars and women are from Venus, right? Nah. Here we now refer to sex of the mind, or what I’d like to call cerebral sex. This is one way to think about gender — how we, in our heads, think about ourselves and how we fit into our society and culture. While a doctor may need to know your genital or hormonal sex, society at large should always respect, define or treat people based on their cerebral sex. Cerebral sex, or gender, is the biological sex that may be furthest from the binary. Here we refer you to the lived experiences of your community members — they may be trans men, trans women, nonbinary folks and two-spirit people, amongst many other genders that are just a Google away. Don’t “believe” that these genders “exist”? They exist because people inhabit them, and because our brains and lived experiences have dictated them. Your gender exists because you inhabit yours. Cerebral sex/gender is not binary.

Now, you may still be disagreeing with me. You might be thinking that the binary definitions of biological sex are the true definition and that the variations I’ve described are just “exceptions to the rule.” I challenge you, though — how good of a definition of biological sex can it be if it does not capture the lived biologies and experiences of millions of humans? I argue that my definitions of biological sex, each one I’ve provided, are more biologically accurate than a binary view of sex, no matter the definition you choose — they more fully encapsulate the truth of nature and humanity.

So, dear reader, next time someone asks you if sex is binary, ask them, “How are you defining sex?” If they can’t answer, explain to them the different ways we can define biological sex. Explain that, no matter how you define it, biological sex is nonbinary.