ignoring the political aspects, I'd suggest an answer of "because it's the closest thing to accurate that we have". Using "them" when you don't know the gender

ignoring the political aspects, I'd suggest an answer of "because it's the closest thing to accurate that we have". Using "them" when you don't know the gender of the subject has precedent, and makes more sense than using "him" if for no other reason than it's clearer that the person's gender is unknown. It does swap in the ambiguity of whether you're talking about one or many people, but that's usually clear from the context of the surrounding sentence.