Genuinely curious as to why you're purposefully misgendering Mae? Their pronouns are they/them. It's basic respect.
You say that they: "occupies cultural space / space in the perception of others as a les without being one (which annoys me)". Firstly, their sexuality has nothing to do with you. Secondly, Mae has no control over how others perceived them, nor should they care. Maybe get annoyed about things that actually concern you?
Pronouns have an original function and its the only way they have any function.they provide context,clarity and help to enforce safety protocols too
you are in a camp of some hundreds of millions campaigning to absolutely obliterate their function & make them compelled speech that uselessly duplicates part of the job of a first name.
you cannot be surprised that given the major contextual information biological sex gives to human society there are counter hundreds of millions.. actually billions globally who use pronouns for their only functional application, to indicate sex for which "Gender" was once a helpful synonym that distinguished the biological categories from the act of intercourse.
if you don't afford Rachel Dolezal status as an African American you should really reconsider using a neutral plural for Mae