I dunno. I don't think it's particularly consequential at all, except for some transient periods where people are being misled by the mismatch between new usage and old implication. (So for the only period where it actually does anything, using the new terms can be a form of mild dishonesty.)

Otherwise, "retarded" wouldn't have picked up the connotations of "idiot", nor would "special" once "retarded" was discarded.

Also, you can have highly gendered not just pronouns but whole languages (like Norwegian) and yet have attitudes that are as progressively equal between the sexes as anywhere (Norway consistently scores at the top of gender equality indices).

I think, rather, changing word choice is mostly a marker of changing culture, but mostly not driving anything. Changing attitudes is key. If attitudes change, sometimes language must change to fit, and that's an obvious way to read out the change. Effecting change by altering language seems far less probable. Indeed, books have been written about it not working as well as one would hope (c.f. 1984).