Eli5: Why do you use “they” for non-gendered speech instead of “it”?

Question

I’m not a native speaker, but as far as I understood, for singular objects and animals “it” was used. Why use “they” for individual people then?

In: 1400

Answer 1

You’re from Spain right? Same reason y’all use el leísmo over there. Just like “le” sounds more like a person than “lo”, “they” sounds more like a person than “it”.