I am not a native English speaker and I have sometimes referred to people as male and female (as that is what I have been taught) but I have received some backlash in some cases, especially for the word “female”, is there some negative thought in the word which I am unaware of?
I don’t know if this is the best place to ask, if it’s not appropriate I have no problem to delete it ^^
A noun adjunct is a noun functioning as an adjective. By contrast, in “a female scientist,” female is an adjective and not a noun adjunct.
To me, “female-only spaces” sounds like conventional English and I much prefer it to “woman-only” which sounds gross to me. Google NGrams agrees.
I agree with you regarding the character example.