Power leveling warning:
Over a decade ago I made a jokey tweet involving the word “females”, because it sounds funnier in your head when you say “females” instead of “women”. Someone chided me and said it was a creepy word to use. At the time I thought it was just someone incredibly sensitive, but now I realize it was an early transgender activist trying to make sure everyone is using “women” so they can more easily appropriate the word.
Diabolical.
I never understood it then either, and came to the same conclusion. It was someone with tranny shit on the brain.
I think it has to do with incels
Just wanted to add that, yes, this started with incels. Manosphere content was popping off in the late 2000s/2010s and it was observed that these men would use humanizing terms for themselves and other men - dude, man, bro, guy, etc. - but would refer to women almost exclusively as females. Cue Ferengi jokes.
Of course, this quickly slid into retardation because the internet is a giant game of telephone, so when tranny shit metastasized people would insist that the word female in and of itself was offensive because they've heard the Ferengi jokes but don't know where the complaint originates from.