Seeing a public figure of the company nudge one opinion that people leaving is a positive thing is an indirect way of saying "We don't want people who disagree with our decisions to stay here." The mob mentality of accept-it-or-go in a place where the success of the site relies solely on community feedback is absurd. These changes may help a subset of people feel more included, but there is a cutoff where the cost of alienating the rest of the community isn't worth it, especially if it makes a mess of how Q&A takes place.
EveryEver since the abrupt change to the Code of Conduct, the welcoming nature of the community has taken a major hit as a whole. The amount of backlash is notnot because people are going to choose not to be respectful; it's because it's an unrealistic and unreasonable way to encourage users to be good people. I am very resistant to being demanded that I type in a particular manner that is abnormal to me. If I encountered someone, in person, who threw a pronoun my way that isn't typical language to me, I'd refer to them by their name, "you", or "you/they""they". Someone being offended by "you/they""you" or "they" is being at least as unreasonable, if not more, than me disagreeing as I am when I disagree with their desire to control my language.
CM's should be there to build a foundation of rules, but the community feedback should help shape and refine those rules to fit the social nature of the site.