In degree, America is far removed from the world of North Korea. But when government is given the power to determine what is acceptable speech, we are operating out of the same totalitarian mindset that leads to dystopian hell.
Source: Without Free Speech, All Speech Becomes Government Speech - Foundation for Economic Education
I don't know where to begin with this story. First, there's the specific example about gender discussion, then there's the overall encompassing concern of freedom of speech.
First, when the student in this story claimed there are only two genders, he is correct. Gender should not be confused with gender identity. If a medical form asks what your gender is, they don't care about your gender identity, they care about your gender (a.k.a. sex). It tends to be medically important. So, stating something accurately should not be labeled as hate speech or be grounds for suspension regardless of your views on gender identity. While this particular story is from Scotland, it's easy to imagine the same scenario playing out here in the U.S.
Secondly, again regardless of your views on the issue, freedom of speech is important so that it may be discussed openly. Nothing will be solved by labeling something as hate speech and ignoring it. That's a kindergarten tactic. Most importantly, however, is who gets to decide what hate speech is? While I believe that the vast majority of people don't support hate speech as a thing people should do, I doubt that everyone agrees on exactly what hate speech is and giving government the authority define hate speech is inherently dangerous. If you value free speech, that would be terr... I mean doubleplusungood. That fact that 51% of Americans polled support banning hate speech (without even being given a definition of hate speech) is disturbing to say the least.
This reminds me of another pet peeve of mine...hate crimes. If someone murders you because they hate your race, sex, gender identity, religion or whatever is that really worse than if they murder you just because they like murdering or they want to take your stuff? Aren't you just as dead? Is your life somehow more valuable in one scenario than the other? Is it really necessary to have thought crimes?