We can't tell if it's pointlessly gendered unless wet know what the questions are about. Seems likely to be a study of some kind, and knowing how men perceive other men, for example, might be valuable data.

The email sounds like a college student participating in a sociology study for class and asking the professor for clarification. This is exactly the kind of thing that I'd expect to ask about gender along with a bunch of other personal information. The goal being to see if any patterns in the responses.

Sociology in general does have the problem that categories are important and helpful to spotting patterns, but people are very difficult to categorize. People just don't fit cleanly into categories

Well, sometimes gender fucks with the data because we live in a society and all that. Gotta at least try to compensate for likely sources of error