I simply don't think it's rude to ask why someone is studying one thing over a related subject when it doesn't appear to make as much sense.

Totally depends on context. It can be, depending on how ignorant you are on the topic in question, how badly you phrase it, consideration of how fraught that topic is, and what is underlying your question, all of which were done pretty badly here.

Like this is a situation that literally only doesn't make as much sense if you're completely oblivious to and ignorant of the entire situation, which isn't necessarily a great moral wrong, it just had you completely putting your foot in it.

Take this attitude into Northern Ireland or Harlem and you won't get on well

. I also think you're seeing reasons to take unnecessary offense over nothing, and it would be a sorry world if you couldn't ever ask people why they're doing things to avoid offending people like yourself.

In my world I have to just read the room, have some self awareness and sensitivity because I work for Ukrainian refugees 5 days a week and have to learn not to be ignorant to them