Hi, I'm pretty sure I didn't tell you that you're a dude :D I referred to the player, or you, as "they" to avoid that and you can see yourself as whatever you want. The scenes are mostly for comedic reasons anyways (for now).
If I had to take a guess, over 90% of players don't read the codex and that is absolutely okay of course. I thought it was just a nice addition and might come handy in the future. If you return to the game for example in a couple month again, you may have forgotten what the different races are called or which character was who, so you can get a little reminder from that too.
Happy to hear that you're enjoying the game so far!