Does anyone actually have the source of when Araki said that? Literally never seen an interview or anything oficial that says that, it's always "a rumour".
@forkchan same, but I wouldn't say it was a choice of both his publishers and Araki if Araki wrote him as a female character first and the change was something the publishers insisted on. We don't know the finer details, but it does seem like a drastic change to make on a whim without any outside forces involved. Hence, most people be side-eyeing the publishers on this one.
@Deuxhey I probably responded to you or someone with a similar question about this before, but the answer is "no"... except I wouldn't call it rumor either. It's widely-accepted because it lines up with the weird handling of the character's sex. You just change it, offer no real explanation, and then later you find out that
they are Jolyne's love interest
... doesn't take a genius to start connecting some dots, especially since, as inclusive as different representations in Japanese media can be, the government and audience demographics won't necessarily eat that up, and the shonen genre especially is a more foreign area to bring in ideas like "lesbians". So when someone brings up the idea of, "was changing that the publishers' idea?" a lot of people can see it happening very easily.