Theory: We are Azem

[Eisi]

(...)what does this do if 'an Azem from an aborted far future that isn't literally exactly us' is true that 'Azem is our many-years-before predecessor that also isn't literally exactly us' doesn't?

Then why didn't they make Azem have their own defined gender, like Ardbert?

Because we are supposed to identify with Azem. Because we are Azem.

[Hurlstone]

Hmmm... whilst I do hope the Azem aspect is still explored, I do not really want time travel to be involved. Lets leave that plot device alone for a while after Endwalker haha.

Because we are supposed to identify with Azem. Because we are Azem.

I think it was done purely for the identify aspect, so they could hammer in to the player that Azem was part of our character. I really like how our Azem is made up of shards with diffrent gender and races. Makes sense with games themes and Azems title as an explorer.

[Cleretic]

Then why didn't they make Azem have their own defined gender, like Ardbert?

Because we are supposed to identify with Azem. Because we are Azem.

Nix your third sentence, because your second sentence is correct.

Consider Ardbert. Even before Shadowbringers, Ardbert's design was already communicating 'this is a version of you' by way of having the same design as ARR Trailer WoL. That's a really solid, metatextual way of communicating that to us, so when they were more explicit with that in Shadowbringers, they actually didn't need to do much extra to sell that he was the direct fragment of our soul; the design nods had already gotten him there.

Azem has to reach the same conclusion in an entirely different context; Azem doesn't appear in person, and either never has their 'this is you'-ness take center-stage or has taken so long to reach that point that at this point we still haven't gotten it. This means they instead have to sell 'this is a version of you' entirely by actions and non-physical descriptions. They manage this by having characters point out physical/aetheric similarities, describing their personality in a way that (hopefully) matches how you read the WoL themselves, and... yeah, matching the pronouns. All this evidence is considerably more subjective than the ones working in Ardbert's favor, so they all have to be as strong as possible. Because if Azem was set in stone to be male, then it's all the more possible for someone playing a female character to just go 'oh that's a new, unrelated character' and ignore all the evidence, thus misreading Azem entirely.

Basically: Azem matches our pronouns because they need to communicate who they are as clearly as possible for the people in the cheap seats.