I don't think "misunderstanding" is quite the word. There are plenty of details in the comments at synecdochic's place that dissect it. It wasn't a glitch; along with the slated change in ability to not specify gender, someone deliberately wrote, in the beta code, an error message stating that an unspecific gender was not acceptable. I don't understand the tech/flow stuff enough to summarise it, but there's plenty more there to suggest that what's going on now is simple backpedalling in the face of objection.