[feborges]

The fact that many "battles" weren't as heated as today sounds like you are implying that they aren't as important or worth fighting.

At some point the "battle" for slavery abolition wasn't very heated either.

p.s.: I'm NOT, in any way, putting both causes at the same level but they both sound legit to me.

[Jach]

I agree that's not a good implication to make. The question was about understanding why the editorial comment would be made at all at the time, what the motivation for it was, and why the supposed reasoning for using the pronoun was the user being in a particular environment and time instead of the simpler explanation of pronoun tradition. A plausible candidate would be the ideological battles for the correct usage of pronouns that I've seen in my own adulthood, which isn't to say all ideological issues are bad for being ideological.