Is there really a strong amount of outrage about which gender neutral pronoun was used? As the use of a gender neutral pronoun seems like the important bit.
Yes. Especially in academia, where it's often a bullshit power-play in a really bizarre bureaucracy, that wastes alot of time.
I know someone who was dragged into some HR process because she did not sufficiently respect the wishes of a subordinate who did not self-identify as a human being, identified as a "non-binary organism" instead, and selected "it" as the only acceptable pronoun. Fortunately, the process got bogged down for a couple of years between the various unions, human rights committees and administrative processes and the complaint went away when the individual moved on.
That sounds similar to some of the gender politicking that someone pointed out in Mastodon.[1][2] I'm still not sure at this point if some of those don't just represent some next level trolling.
There was even a situation a little before this year's WorldCon [the annual globe-trotting science fiction convention] that presented via Twitter; it was resolved "to satisfaction" and the offended person still attended but yes -- there can be, and has been, outrage.
