There are people who want to believe in a great conspiracy of "politically correct" social justice warriors, who are using their political influence to bully corporations and individuals, which seems to be compatible with what you're saying. There are also people who want to believe in a great conspiracy of male software developers who think that women are at best unnecessary and at worst inferior contributors to the industry. Both are totally incorrect, but these debates often seem to proceed on the basis that these two sides are real and at war with each other, and the only choice we have is which side we want to be on. I don't think you're deliberately reinforcing this idea, but this is the effect that posts like yours can have.
Would you be willing to put your company on the line in the event of such a situation? I mentioned potentially - it is possible almost none of those possibilities happened. But if you were in the position to make risk assessments for your company, would you risk this story being picked up by national media?
Similarly, would you put your company's culture on the line?
Hmm. I'm probably the kind of person who would try to refuse being influenced by what I believed to be unreasonable pressure. I've said how I think this situation should be handled and I would be willing to defend that. I suppose I have a lot of faith in talking sensibly to people and working things out, and maybe that is naive.
Sometimes one simply has to call the bluff. If I had to say what "side" I'm on, I'd say I'm on the side of inclusivity and I'm happy to state a clear preference for the removal of gender-exclusive language from source code comments. If people think that's not enough, and that I should start firing people who do not immediately agree to do so when presented with ad-hoc pull requests to that effect, I'd also be willing to explain to those people why I won't be firing anyone on those grounds. If we believe that everyone really does divide into the two camps of totalitarian feminists and reactionary chauvinists then I'm going to be attacked by both sides. My point is that I believe that very few people hold such views, and that most people just want the right thing to happen and for nobody to get hurt in the process, and I can't imagine that I could suffer meaningful damage from holding such a view.
That's a fair position to hold - I would prefer to err on being decisive & setting a no tolerance standard on this type of behavior, but your approach/viewpoint isn't onerous. However, it is risky in that this is the type of issue that can result in lost business since there are arguably enough public details here to make a judgment call.
There are people who want to believe in a great conspiracy of "politically correct" social justice warriors, who are using their political influence to bully corporations and individuals, which seems to be compatible with what you're saying. There are also people who want to believe in a great conspiracy of male software developers who think that women are at best unnecessary and at worst inferior contributors to the industry. Both are totally incorrect, but these debates often seem to proceed on the basis that these two sides are real and at war with each other, and the only choice we have is which side we want to be on. I don't think you're deliberately reinforcing this idea, but this is the effect that posts like yours can have.