In the Final Fantasy XIV Fanfest at Tokyo, Yoshida announced that male Viera is not avaliable because male Viera is very rare in lore-wise, so Hrothgar is the counterpart of female Viera. In other words, Viera and Hrothgar are gender-locked.
Curiouser and curiouser.
This decision contradicts with what they did in the past. Mi’qote and Roegadyn are two examples. These two races were designed to have limited tender option back in 1.0, but Yoshida changed the option back to both genders in 2.0 and admitted that gender lock was a mistake. I am not sure about female Roegadyn, but male Mi’qote is rare in lore-wise too. However, every player can choose to play it.
Inside the game world, the player is the only Warrior of Light, and every other player is supposed to be a random adventure. The developing team admitted this point. Therefore, even we see things that contradict with the cannon, but we can still accept it and play the game. Male Viera should not be an exception.
Another interesting point is that they did not mention the reason why Hrothgar only has the male option. Besides, Hrothgar is an unusual choice, because it is very similar to Roegadyn, which is the least played-race in game. It is not necessary to add less popular content.
I think “lore” is only a poor excuse. The real reason is time and resources the development team had. Building a new model is complicated enough, and not to mention the adjustments in old content, such as gears and mounts. However, having some ready-made assets is another story. The Hrothgar looks like the Roegadyn with furs. The development team probably could not create a satisfied male Viera model before the deadline, so they used Roegadyn assets to create a variation.
I also think Yoshida knew this is a terrible decision and had no faith in it. Otherwise, in Paris Fanfest, he could have said that even though male Viera was not available but a surprise was going to happen in Tokyo Fanfest. He knew players would be upset, so he delayed the announcement until March.