This was the inevitable result of moving jobs to permanent work from home then realizing if they didn't need people in person then they didn't need to pay people near them and could outsource for way cheaper for the same result.
It always seems like something they added just for the sake of adding it than because it had to be part of the story they were trying to tell. The only series where it made sense was as you said Tanya where it was an intetional part of the punishment by Being X and it even then has no real impact on the plot or the character. 99.9% of the time gender bender bullshit serves zero purpose and is just there because someone in the writing team has some weird feitsh for it.
The problem is there is a creeping tendril from the west in the form of localizers who are both trying to push woke shit in the officially licensed versions of anime (the dragon maid dub comes to mind) and are also trying to push their way into the Japanese market itself by funding anime with western money such as from netflix.
"Women started watching stuff specifically geared for men, therefor it's ours now."
That's happening right now with Gundam and this sudden bullshit narritive of "women were the real Gundam fans from the beginning" that literally came out of nowhere coincidently with the start of the first Gundam series with a female protagonist.
doesn't ukraine have actual fucking neo nazis?