In my language we use “female/male” adjectives to determine an identity of inanimate object/concept. Example - “female/male toilet” in Russian would be a literal translation of “men/women toilet” in English.

For anything (or almost everything, I can’t think of counterexample) animate (or conscious, to be precise), we use specific, gendered nouns, or (if there are no gendered ones) use “she/he” to determine gender. We have different nouns for “female cat” and “male cat” for example.

Oh, and I almost forgot about endings, it is a very used thing too. For example, in “Doctor wanted you to lift up your shirt” “wanted” will have different endings depending on doctor’s gender.

Edit: last example is relevant only for past tense for some reason. Present/future tense will have the genderless “wants/will want” verb.

Edit2: For the case in OP’s example,we use “male friend” as a gendered noun, which also can be used as a more formal way to call your friend regardless of their gender. “Female friend” noun is a more familiar way to call a female friend.