I had problems with this myself. I managed to get his age and gender to stay by :-
Upon selecting 'options' from menu, I made sure age and gender was the first and only thing I changed in the options. Once changed, I repeatedly clicked on 'apply age/gender' about 20 times. Then I selected 'Apply' in bottom right corner and then 'ok'.
I've tried this several times changing to a different age/gender and this method worked each time.
Echoman.