I agree with you on the skin colour thing. It has indeed a deep effect on your experience as a human being, it is not just a physical marker, it is a cultural one too, and when fiction ignores this, it can get strange (though if you think about this, maybe a fantasy universe where there are actual non-human races, like elves and dwarfes, maybe humans will only see each other as human regardless of the tone of their skin).
On the transgender and monotheist stuff, I disagree.
I assume you mean the Absolute story line when you mentioned monotheism (something I am very curious about by the way, give me some new non-human / morally ambiguous deity). Yes, monotheism as Christians think about it makes no sense within the Forgotten Realms cosmos, but monotheism as a sense of patron deities, like elves venerate Corellon, orcs Gruumsh et cetera, that is very much present. They don't deny the existence of other gods, only they prefer the worship their own creator deity for obvious reasons. This is the reason I am excited to find out why the goblinoids decided to worship the Absolute (I mean they have their own creator deity). I am also curious about the Absolute's identity, maybe an older deity or group of deities is trying to rebrand themselves to gain more power (there were examples for this in Faerun canon).
About transgender people in Faerun. Magic is not a mundane tool for everybody. Just because a 20th level wizard can cast wish that doesn't mean nobody is starving in the Forgotten Realms. A transmuter mage can craft a philosopher stone and produce gold from tin, yet poverty is still a thing in Faerun. The same way, just because transgender people have a much more ideal way to assume their real gender identity (via magic) that doesn't mean that a true polymorph spell is available for everybody (or that cursed belt of gender shifting from the previous titles).
