And I will say what others are afraid to say: one of the reasons I like the OT is because the protagonist is a man. I like the hero’s journey idea. It is inspiring and more men need stuff like that in their lives. It is okay for something to be about and for (primarily) men and their experiences. The opposite is, of course, also true.
Ironically, Disney originally bought Star Wars because they wanted to expand their appeal to the male demographic. For decades, Disney content was more associated with the female demographic (e.g. Disney princesses, etc.) Bob Iger wanted to expand Disney’s appeal by encompassing broader content that would appeal to both men and women. That was, according to Iger, part of the long-term strategy behind buying Marvel and Star Wars - to get more males watching Disney content. Obviously, at some point between 2012 and the late 2010s, this thinking shifted.
Personally, I really like the idea of a female protagonist for Episodes 7 through 9. I think having another male protagonist for the third Trilogy would be too repetitive. If I could rewrite episodes 7 through 9, I would keep the female protagonist (I’d rename her though, I hate the name Rey). My primary gripe with the Sequels is not that the protagonist is female, but rather that they wrote the story as a reboot which wiped out all the prior progress established in the OT (e.g. the New Republic, Luke’s Jedi order). I would have loved a trilogy starring Rey, where she becomes Luke’s star pupil, and ultimately she carries on the Jedi torch after Luke dies. But that’s just not what we got.