Dear Armen,
I share the same similar language experience with you. The Insular SEA dialect I grew up using until my teenage years before we immigrated to the US did not have gender specific pronouns and nouns. We don’t have a word for “s/he”. We simply don’t have that concept. Also, I discovered that before the Spaniards came, colonized and imposed their religion and ways to the country I was born in, my ancestors had a strong matriarchal society where women held equal status as the men of the community and sometimes held more power than the men. Moreover, it is quite interesting that my research also showed that homosexuals played a special role in the society and they were never treated badly or discriminated upon until the colonists came.
with añjali and metta ,
russ