STOP Genderlocking Cosmetics!!

[Lihtleita]

Not really. The easiest job is similar to champions in LoL : one model, clothing integrated as a direct shape of the character. As soon as you do clothes, since you have two genders, you have two basic bodyshapes, it far easier and faster to extract one clothing from each and develop it specifically rather than doing one for both and copy one to another. Just the copy can generate ghost clipping. This because of topology and shape keys (especially since you need to delete as many hidden part as possible to avoid clipping and useless GPU work).
The more HD is topology, the farest topologies are between genders (hips and breast for example).

so lalafell should be allowed to wear any clothes because their models are literally the same right?

[HollowedDoll]

so lalafell should be allowed to wear any clothes because their models are literally the same right?

yes, actually, but they won't do that because it's either all or nothing.
another issue is that male characters have midlander ( au ra, miqote, highlander, elezen ) and roe based races ( hrothgar ), while all female characters use the same base model so porting a female outfit would require double the work than the other way around.
the exception is lalafell but they're identical in body

[Eldevern]

so lalafell should be allowed to wear any clothes because their models are literally the same right?

Should? No. Could? Most likely.

[Amnmaat]

The last thing I want is boring genderless clothing/armors in this game.
What adds flavor to clothes is when they're made to accentuate the naturally born gender or body shape.