One wrinkle is that 347 came from a time when Jeph was handling AnthroPCs completely differently from today and it may no longer be canon.
That's very true, and I did admit that other events suggest that Jeph was moving away from his initial stance on AI gender. But I think that the way he is developing AI characters and his approach to gender in general suggests to me that he would be moving towards a position more closely resembling gender essentialism rather than further from it. If Jeph treated gender as being something independent of the chassis even then, I cannot imagine he would do otherwise now, especially considering his marvelous handling of Claire and her relationship with her body.*
*I am thinking specifically of Claire and Marten's first night of sexual intimacy and Claire disrobing and saying "this is me". Jeph's decision to not reveal the status of her transition and subsequent refusal to do so is really powerful for me. It is a meaningful declaration that the particular shape of her body has nothing to do with her being a woman. I simply cannot believe he would do any different for Bubbles.
I think the real mark of change I think was when 'the singularity happened' in strip
1777. It seems to be after this there is a significant change in all AI's as a whole in the comic. Granted this is right before the Martin/Dora break-up so it's not till
over a hundred strips later when we touch on it again, meet Clinton and AI civil rights is mentioned. In strip
1921 we do still have mention of PT410X and his obviously HORRIBLE 'owner' but by strip
1997 we have Momo getting her new chassis and BAM! the first humanoid AI's we've seen since Hanners's dad sent her the 'boyfriend.' After that it snowballs, strips
2068-2072 we see Clinton again and further the AI's story-line along further, strip
2085 brings Momo's reading the book 'AI Civil Rights: An Organic (can't make it out)',
2283-2285 Momo and Emily talk about companion AI relationship contracts,
2332 Momo and Pintsize talk compainionship.. Then the next strip Jeph gets revisionist and the AI workng the 'AnthroPC Companion Connections' place is a humanoid AI much like all the ones we see now..
I guess what I'm saying is, there was a point where things changed for AI's and they rapidly advanced in the QC verse and their sexuality is no different.