We are all equal.
Imagine a foreigner learning English and asking "Why do I have to care if people are male or female? What a sexist language! Nobody cares about genitals in my culture!" And they start to refer to everybody as "he", regardless of, well, genitals.
They won't come across as more enlightened, transcending the shackles of sexist English grammar.
They will simply sound like a poor English speaker.
Explaining all the details of how to distinguish e.g. a butch lesbian from a trans man to someone from a different cultural tradition is, of course, an incredible pain.
The number of people, particularly women, who don't adhere to gendered fashion greatly exceeds the number of transgender people.
If you'd phrase an email differently to a high-level exec vs your coworker, you've experienced it. Same with dressing differently to meet a new client vs an old friendly one. Both cases where you'd probably use the formal and informal depending on who you're talking to.
In Norway it's now rare to come across the equivalent "Herr" other than as an insult (implying you're stuck up), outside of very limited cases, such as instead of "Mr", but that use too is in steep decline.
English is full of ways to express implied hierarchy through different wording / tone without the T-V distinction.
PS: even in English, you're probably not using as many F-bombs and S-bombs when you talk to powerful people.
We are not equal.
No one is equal to no one. I do not see how this can be taken badly at all : absence of equality does not equate to lack of intrinsic merit.
As to the main topic : I think some degree of deference to some people, represented by some specific words, is a good thing, as long as it does not fall into some Byzantine rules that make communication less efficient.