There are some sub-cultures in the world that see "men appearing as women", as they say, to be a prophetic sign of impending doom. This is the problem with archaic belief systems, they invent things like harbingers. This plants an unconscious fear in the subscribers to that belief system. To them using specific a pronoun means the apocalypse might happen, and the nature of time and reality will unravel.
People have a tendency to just use the surface, literal interpretation. We are just our physical bodies, that's all. What we consider awareness, consciousness, is simple some after effect of neural activity. There is no such things as a "spirit" or "soul". And even many who say they believe in a spirit or soul only do so in name and they have no mental construct to visualize it. To them the physical body and the spirit are exactly the same thing.
I call this "matter primary". The belief that the universe is matter FIRST and "energy", "spirit" are mere side effects, leaking off that matter.
It is being found though that "matter" is but a small subset of energy. That it is the various energies in the universe and how they interact that condense that energy into what we call "matter". It's what they are spending all that money on at CERN in Geneva. years ago guys like Einstein and Tesla had some interesting things to say. We are still trying to figure out their ideas.
But this "matter first", literal approach to things?
That is why some have trouble using the proper pronoun.
We have a society based on ignorant, outdated science.