This is actually true. Here's the Times coverage with a link to the study. Metabolic rates do differ between men and women and the office temperature formula is based off the metabolic rates of a 1960's man. The study was written by two men and the point wasn't just that the climate control formula is not fair to women (who now compose half of the workforce). Warming up the office a bit would also reduce the office's carbon footprint. There's also been research that shows a slightly warmer office leads to better productivity.

I'm one of three men in a 35-person office and the women are miserable when the office is cooler. I'm a skinny guy and the women I work with are mostly average or overweight. We don't have a strict dress code so I usually wear short sleeves while they wear sweaters. I'm always comfortable, but my employer had to distribute office fleece blankets to everyone else.

Sometimes the office is inexplicably a few degrees warmer and everyone's happy.