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

“It” is considered very offensive because “it” is only used to refer to things that are not people, like animals or objects. By calling a person “it”, you’re essentially saying that they’re not a person, they’re an object or an animal, and obviously that’s very offensive.