RJ was not the most clear writers in the best of times: there was confusion because at one point he said the Dragon Reborn would always be male, while at other times he has indicated that a female Dragon would go by another name, title or role. He's also never revealed whether the first channeler, presumably named 'Tamyrlin' was a male or female, while many readers assume that this person was a male since Lews Therin was said to wear his ring - most female rings are too small to be worn by men, and etc.

Basically, I think the confusion is that readers are reading too deeply into his words, whether they be in the book or in a Q&A session. It seems obvious to me that if you think something is intuitively obvious but you enjoying seeing people squirm, it behooves you to confuse the evidence as much as possible, and that is probably what he was doing.