Gamete Size Is Essential for Understanding Sex and Sexual Selection in Humans, Animals, Plants, and Algae But Configurations of Sex-Linked Traits Are Practically Important for Understanding Sex

First, I briefly highlight recent discussions of sex and how they contrast with a gametic central understanding of sex in the executive order. I then provide some background on why gametes have been central to defining sex across species in evolutionary biological sciences. Understanding this perspective is important because it helps understand the competing frames people are using when they talk of sex as binary instead of as a spectrum or a multidimensional configuration of traits. The gametic central framing is essential for understanding sex and sexual selection across species, whereas the multidimensional configuration framing is practically useful in medical, psychological, and social sciences when studying emergent sex-related structures and how they relate to social roles (e.g., Lee, 2018).