I don't take offense to the word. I don't get it either.

Trying to figure out what is and isn't PC these days in mental gymnastics. I value respect, and humor....but have no clue how to balance them, so I just default to being a cranky old bastard and yelling at kids to get off my damned lawn.

My guess is that in things like rap music, entertainment and sometimes IRL, "females" gets used In a derogative and/or lascivious manner.

It's a vibes thing. I totally get it tho, I totally used to say it bc it's faster than saying "women and girls." I just use the word gals now though.

As someone who lived most of their life as a woman I can kinda explain.

Female can be appropriate medically but depending on person, tone, and context it can have a STANK to it. It's an othering word said like "[i]FE[/i]male" to remind us of our place.

It kinda sounds like you're asking about trans people in a roundabout way so I will add that the prefixes "cis" and "trans" before the gender is used to distinguish and works perfectly well. Trans men/women and cis men/women are both men/women. Oh and non binary people exist and can need medical transition and deserve support like any other queer person!!!

No one regularly calls men males that I’d noticed.
And yes, female is biologically correct, but it’s nearly always used online in conjunction with something vaguely (or overtly) misogynistic.

Cops started that. They don't see non cops ("civilians") as human.