No it sounds just as cringe in English (at least UK English) as you highlight for Swedish/French. You wouldn't say "so I was just told by a female.", you would

No it sounds just as cringe in English (at least UK English) as you highlight for Swedish/French. You wouldn't say "so I was just told by a female.", you would say "so I was just told by a woman." or an example of when female wouldn't sound (as) cringe "so I was just told by my female colleague". I don't think it's a HN quirk, you see it on certain subs of reddit as well. So it's probably more of a subculture thing, it could also be that from certain languages translations to "A female" make more sense, but I'm not aware of what that/those languages would be.