Backstory: BYU used to have this service called "The 100 Hour Board" where anyone could post a question and an anonymous board of student question-answerers would guarantee an answer within 100 hours.

It was a very cool Web 1.0-type thing. They had their own memes, shibboleths, culture, inside jokes, the whole thing. They would tackle questions of all kinds, including relationship advice or identifying the song that was used during a particular dance performance I saw (that was a hard one, but they like made phone calls around campus and everything to find the best answer they could).

Anyway, I think that's where I encountered "werf" as an alternative to the cumbersome "he/she". I always liked it. I think it traces its roots back to the words "were" (man, as in "werewolf") and "weaf" (woman, I think maybe related to the word "wife").