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I wrote the sentence below and was told it was incorrect because the word 'personne' is feminine and thus the personal pronouns afterwards should not be masculin even though I was talking about a man.
I wrote this:
Parce qu'il y a une personne qui est végétarienne et il est très drôle...mais il est Américain
She said because we don't know it's a man it should be like this:
Parce qu'il y a une personne qui est végétarienne et elle est très drôle... mais elle est Américaine
Yes, pronouns referring to a substantive must agree with it. However, you can switch genders if the pronouns no more directly refer to the substantive but to something/someone of a different gender.
So the adjectives must agree with the substantive personne but the remaining clauses aren't required to agree if you know it's a man, they only need to agree with the pronoun used.
Unknown (or undisclosed) gender:
Il y a une personne qui est végétarienne et elle est très drôle... mais elle est américaine.
Known gender:
Donald Trump est une personne très intelligente et il est très drôle... mais il est américain.
