If we indeed end up with two gender-locked races for ShB, then I honestly can't understand the logical decision behind this.
There will be 99% chance that significant part of the playerbase will complain and demand the gender-lock to be removed, so SE should know that they will end up making two full races anyway.
If the reasoning is that making two full races takes a lot of resources, then why don't release one full race first then add the other full race later?
I don't see how making two half races is better than making one full race resource-wise.