I have almost never felt the need to do so, in fact, I do get a bit amused by it. As I said, I do not have a notion of male/female. If someone considers me feminine, I do not feel any different. It maybe a mental thing, or again, a by product of my upbringing.
It's more of an issue for trans folks, some of whom feel a strong disassociation with their biological sex. If someone's trying hard to pass as a gender that doesn't match their sex, having someone misgender them feels pretty awful.
I used to somewhat dislike english for being confusing, but it is effectively my first language. I have read/written English more than any other languages combined (4 others) and also spoken it the most/ 2nd most. I find it good enough. Especially, since it’s lingua franca in academia
Fair enough! For what it's worth, I wouldn't have known you weren't a native English speaker if you hadn't said so yourself (though it did provide useful context around why you were confused about gender vs. sex!)
I have heard that small recurring donations are more helpful in general than larger one-time donations, so that's what I tend to do - small recurring donations to services I use or creators whose content I consume. I tend to only do this when the service or content is primarily donation-supported, though.
This is also easier for me to manage, because it becomes a monthly recurring cost and I can see easily how much I'm spending on donations and adjust them as needed, whereas with larger one-time donations, I tend to lose track of how much the total is in a given period.