Gender identity in itself is a mark of individuality that the Qunari might not have. I don't particularly recall how they've treated the issue in Inquisition, but having women in the military or what have you is something that could've been justified in-lore given the proper approach to the writing (which nuWare is too incompetent to have, naturally). Sten's remark was after all in regards to professional aptitudes and nothing else.
I'm like 98% sure this is the writers' rationale but it takes enough legwork to get there that I'm not surprised that the shortcut of 'retconned the qunari into being a lgbtq+ utopia' is the default position.
The qunari are a highly communal, consequentialist society as a result of their adherence to their religious/philosophical perspectives. Individuals
only matter in so far as they contribute to the whole. This is to the point where individuals either don't have (or don't share, I forget which) individual names, instead they're named after the role they fill in society. Identity is entirely subsumed by societal contribution, ideally. I don't know if anything has ever been explicitly stated about how this would apply to other identity aspects like gender but probably? Roles might be explicitly gendered (ie if you are a soldier you are male) or implicitly (ie most soldiers have penises so the role is male) or explicitly as a result of implicit norms, cognitives biases etc (ie soldiers must be assigned male because I noticed most of them already have penises). Young qunari are sent to creches where the priest or teacher caste figures out what their future roles are going to be. Now let's say for the role of soldier it just so happens to turn out that 98% of children who have penises turn out be fit for that role because of bigger muscles, more aggression etc. But 2% of the children have vaginas but are aggressive, are skilled at fighting and/or are really bad or disinterested in roles more typically assigned to those with vaginas to the point of detriment.
What do you do with the 2%? Keep in mind you are part of a society that thinks
everyone should contribute to their best capacity, to the point of enslaving mages despite finding their very existence ontologically threatening and that turn intransigent malcontents into mindless worker drones rather than executing them. Do you:
A) take the 2% behind the shed and lose potential value?
B) pathologize the tool and in so doing detract it's value contribution to society twofold in the sense that it only contributes after being fixed
and you need to assign someone to fix it?
C) acknowledge that the 2%'s idiosyncrasies are not conducive to the roles typically assigned but, as the 2% has no presumed deficits beyond being a bit odd, it will ultimately add more value than the other alternatives even if it's assignation is atypical.
So no, in this particular instance there is no
necessary reason to assume Bioware retconned for inclusivity and/or political correctness. People just aren't being dystopian enough when considering the Qun's logic.
