As for the gender for Uni 2: I haven't decided. Originally in the first draft of Uni I had it where you could pick between a brother and a sister to play as and each sibling went with a different parent in a recent divorce.
But it became very clear that I'd be making two separate games within one. So that draft was scrapped.
The same thing still applies for Uni 2, we would essentially be making two full games worth of gameplay and scenes. Though it may be easier to do considering the assets we will be working with. If we do wind up not going with a choice of male or female protag then it will be a male protagonist since the first game had a female protagonist.