Fixing an Unfortunate Implication: Non-Cis People in The Wheel of Time

[Anteros]

what do they have to gain from stopping people from trying to solve it for themselves?

In this particular case? Stopping people from mangling one of their favorite stories in order to push personal agendas. Headcanon whatever you want, but when it derails discussion of the book, or people are pushing to get their fan-fiction into the adaptation being made then don't be surprised when people disagree with you.

Well, it's a problem because the current implication is that there are no trans, nonbinary, or gender fluid people... and that's exclusionary. It's quite literally taking a group of people and saying "There is no place for you in this cool world we've built", even if only by implication. (Alternatively, "There is no place for you in this cool magic system we've designed", which is fundamentally the same problem). And that's not a nice message to send.

I've chosen to single it out because it's almost certainly not an intentional message; it's an accident born of the way gender and sex were viewed when the author was writing the story, and clashes badly with the series' other themes. Fixing it is therefore a) something an adaptation should be expected to do, to fit with the other themes, and perhaps more importantly b) remarkably unintrusive, because it's an accidental element of the worldbuilding, and thus only comes up a couple of times.

You could argue that it is a minor problem, caused only by a few elements that can be read into in ways the author didn't intend... and I'd say that that's exactly why it should be fixed, because it's so dang easy that it makes a good starting point.

It's not easy at all. You're literally talking about changing a fundamental part of the setting. There are literally dozens of subplots that would need to be changed. Here, I'll make it easy for you. If you're born with male private parts you channel Saidin. If you're born with female parts you channel Saidar. You can identify as whatever you want, but it doesn't change what you were born with. Just like in real life.