I didn't say I wanted these authors to face-off two terms. In my previous comment, I wrote: "If they wanted to have a fair face-off between two terms" and "if the NYT authors intended to call into question..." Indeed, if they wanted it, they might have chosen different punctuation or formatting to serve that goal. This was their article, their idea, their responsibility.

Alternatively, if (as you say) they think these two terms aren't in a close contest, I don't know why they wrote a 1300-word opinion article discussing it (badly). They could have just said "one of these terms is real, the other is fake," and called it a day.

I don't believe the two terms should be in a head-to-head contest at all. I don't think one should be the winner and the other the loser. Further, I disagree with your assumption that such a motivation would be "the only sensible reason" for me to bring up Byrne and Hooven's inadequate framing here.

Rather: I disagree with the authors' premise that the terms "biological sex" and "assigned sex" are in a zero-sum game, wherein one diminishes the other, or one has to be real and the other false, or if one is accepted then the other must be rejected. I disagree that "sex assigned at birth" is always used as an exact stand-in for "sex" with three extra words appended. Instead, I think these terms carry their own meanings and nuances, depending on context. There is room for different concepts, as well as for different language to reflect them.

Byrne and Hooven didn't attempt a review of examples of "sex assigned at birth" used in various contexts (as linguistic researchers would do). Had they made a sincere effort to do so, they could have found examples of statements where "biological sex" can't simply be swapped in to replace "sex assigned at birth." In many cases, an entire sentence, paragraph, idea, or message would have to be reframed if the speaker/writer couldn't use the term "sex assigned at birth." This suggests that the term serves a particular function and does (or can) mean something. Whether it means anything important, and how often it might be important, would be yet another question they aren't remotely prepared to answer.

I believe I made this clear in the conclusion to my article, where I wrote that, in some cases, the term "sex assigned at birth" might be "helpful," and in other cases, there might be a better term "for whatever you need or want to communicate," and in general, people can take the freedom and responsibility to use whatever words are appropriate to whatever it is they're trying to say.

I don't know what you mean about me having made "a reference to a completely specious attack" on the reality of biological sex, sorry.

My article is not about whether biological sex is real.

Instead, my article acknowledges that varied vocabulary can usefully convey different ideas and nuances, for good or ill (there wasn't much for me to say about this; it's an obvious generality) and, more specifically, makes note of Byrne and Hooven's lack of curiosity in real-life examples of how people use the term "sex assigned at birth" that they're nevertheless prepared to toss in the rubbish can.