Being Gendered Correctly

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Originally Posted by Souljacker

I'd agree if it was ambiguous. In the case of the OP, we are talking about a female character, with a female name. Is it really that far a stretch to just call that character a "she"? If the name was something a little more neutral I'd agree every time. All she is saying is if you see someone named Jennifer, go ahead and use the pronoun you'd use if you met someone named Jennifer in real life.

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Problem with doing that is Jennifer is male, and does not want you calling him female. I think it's to much work. No matter what you say someone can take offense. At the end of the day it's just not worth all the stress over a pronoun used on the internet. If you know them personally then correcting close friends ect is no problem. But to correct every random? No thank you.

I honestly couldn't care less if someone refers to me as a "he". Makes my life easier, and it doesn't affect me in any way. To me, correcting them would make it seem like I expect some sort of different treatment due to having boobs. And if for some reason they do find out I'm a chick (usually from TS), the husband and baby normally scare off the creepy ones. ;)

I am here to play a game. I don't care if you are boy, girl, cat, robot or wookie. What i care about is if you can dodge when you are supposed to and you do not cause a wipe.
Personally. I do/will refer to someone as their in game gender until I'm informed otherwise. I've been called dude, bro, he, him, they, blackmage, scholar, she, her but, I know no one is trying to offend or hurt my feelings. People can be oblivious to anything outside their own little world. My FC mates know my gender as do in game friends. beyond that, it doesn't truly matter what the rest of Eorzea thinks.

I am not gonna tell you to "deal with it" or blame it on "all girls are really dudes" but i do hope you find a way to not let this ruin your gaming experience.

tl;dr: blah blah blah


on a lighter note.. no one can tell what gender a lalafell is until you flip them over anyway *giggle* disclaimer: this is a joke. some lighthearted silliness don't judge me! :p

I mostly refer every character I met as a guy or He, don't matter if it male or female character, Unless that person correct me or I hear their voice in voice chat.

more than 80% of female character with female name I know are a dude.... -*-

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Originally Posted by Tharian

Actually not to nitpick, but historically within the English Language the Masculine Pronouns have actually been considered the Gender Neutral Pronouns as well. That is because English does not have an individual set of Gender Neutral Singular Pronouns the way most other languages do.

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Although it pains me to use "they" which is technically plural, we already do this with the 2nd person pronoun as well. "You" is plural. We have no 2nd person singular pronoun any more because "ye" fell out of common use a few hundred years ago in favor of the more polite plural form, even when speaking to a single person. I'm not suggesting "they" as a remedy however, just pointing out the similarity in how these developed to their current forms.

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Originally Posted by Chokee

i call everyone by their character's forename.

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"I talked to Louis and he said that he's going to be late because he had plans with his friend."
vs.
"I talked to Louis and Louis said that Louis is going to be late because Louis had plans with Louis' friend."
If you ever used that second line and you weren't being deliberately ironic, you must be the most tedious person in the world to talk to.

Personally, I get called both he and she in game and I respond to both with equal indifference. In fact I go out of my way not to reference or reveal my real life gender, both to avoid the appearance of seeking attention and because it does not matter and should not matter to the people with whom I am playing.

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Originally Posted by Souljacker

I'd agree if it was ambiguous. In the case of the OP, we are talking about a female character, with a female name. Is it really that far a stretch to just call that character a "she"? If the name was something a little more neutral I'd agree every time. All she is saying is if you see someone named Jennifer, go ahead and use the pronoun you'd use if you met someone named Jennifer in real life.

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Sorry but what? your sense of logic flies all over the place on this one.
You seriously think a male player will name his female character "Bob" to make sure there are no mistakes in gender confusion?
I tend to play female chars cause i prefer them as a casters and never once crossed my mind of naming a female char a male name. That would be so retarded to see in game.

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Originally Posted by Souljacker

Guess I hit my ten post limit, but I still wish to address this comment.

If a man makes a female character and names her Jennifer, he's going to expect that his character may be misgendered. You then use the correct pronoun after he informs you of his preference. But to say that using the accepted feminine pronoun when confronted with a person named Jennifer is "too much work" - that's an absurd statement. There is just nothing about that statement that even remotely makes sense.

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But it's not, you cannot expect everyone to think as you do. There are so many different types of people who play this game. None of which for the most part misgender purposely. To me it's to much work to correct everyone about my gender. All I want to do is kill things and learn about the lore of eorzea. OP is fighting an up hill battle and a losing one at that.

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Originally Posted by reality_check

Why is it so hard for so many people to understand someone's sensitivities? One day in life you will feel strongly about something that the rest of the world probably doesn't give two shits about.

You know what makes it easier? Compassionate people who will respect sensitivities even if it means nothing to them. It's called basic interaction with human beings 101, a course that it seems a lot people around these forums missed out on.

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Then let me ask you.

Are you compassionate towards people in third world lands?
Do you fly to where they live to go help the humanitary organizations?
Do you send thousands of dollars to families in need every year?

Do you?

People bitching about a virtual game do not deserve any compassion imho.
It's totally a 1st world problem.

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Originally Posted by Pantz

Believe it or not, no one is being personal.

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+1

Also, after being on the both end of a lot of chat conversation pranks in the my (loooong) time on the nets its much safer to assume "he" first until proven otherwise (on comms) ;)

OTOH I did had people in the corp/guild/fc/clan/... or even strangers that stated from the start their preferred gender for the conversation and I always tried to respect that regardless of their in game character gender and name.

p.s. as for male's playing female avatars ... I can't help it -- i always get the image of the guy from the Gamer movie playing RL FB thing there /ducks ;)

If this was real life, I'd understand if you were offended, but in a game? Come on.

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Originally Posted by TeaTimeBear

That's not good enough xir. Some I us are mops and brooms in real life, my best friend happens to be a bear married to a disembodied voice. I am offended.

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um... what?

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Originally Posted by SirSaber

Then let me ask you.

Are you compassionate towards people in third world lands?
Do you fly to where they live to go help the humanitary organizations?
Do you send thousands of dollars to families in need every year?

Do you?

People bitching about a virtual game do not deserve any compassion imho.
It's totally a 1st world problem.

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Every problem out there can be compared to a worse one. By that logic, you could say that starving children don't have it that bad because at least they don't have radiation sickness from the Hiroshima bombing. A problem is a problem, no matter how many problems out there that are worse by popular opinion. Please don't make a habit of discrediting peoples problems when you don't know how it feels to them.

Anyways, on topic: I have been guilty of this at times, and learned not to make that sort of assumption anymore. I was worried at one point that I genuinely offended a FC member and felt bad about it... but I apologized immediately and was forgiven. I guess the point of this post is that I hope you can see things from the other end and not be so offended, even if it is tiring. If you make the correction respectfully, you will almost certainly get a respectful apology. If you don't, that person was never worth your time to begin with and should be disregarded.

Best of luck to you in regards to people not making this assumption in the future.


EDIT: To everone saying it's just a game, blah, blah, blah... Have you never experienced feelings when watching a movie, reading a book or playing a game? I know I was sad when Aeris died, when Mufasa died, the end of The Notebook etc. Saying something isn't real life doesn't mean you can't feel emotions about it. Hell, that's half the reason a lot of people play role playing games in the first place. This argument only becomes even less valid when we're talking about a game populated by real people with real lives and emotions. Open your minds a little bit.

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Getting this ass-backwards society to finally treat women and men as equals and not cater to men by default bad.

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Haha, catering to men...lol. You've obviously never been to a mall (hint: 70+% of floor space is aimed at selling to women). Or watched any advertisement not specifically about beers or pickup trucks.

tumblr is it's own little world, sorry to say
gender shouldnt make a difference in a video game
your response and sensitivty makes it a problem
the world does not cater to you

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Originally Posted by SchalaZeal

Haha, catering to men...lol. You've obviously never been to a mall (hint: 70+% of floor space is aimed at selling to women). Or watched any advertisement not specifically about beers or pickup trucks.

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These as examples of organizations "catering" to woman to make money off of them. How is this a positive thing?

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Originally Posted by SirSaber

People bitching about a virtual game do not deserve any compassion imho.
It's totally a 1st world problem.

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Being at odds with society's norms and expectations of gender is far from a "first world problem," even when it's manifested in a virtual world behind a computer screen. I'm sorry you feel this way.

How is referring to someone who plays a female character with a female name as "she" catering to them? How is that self-entitlement? Are you missing the "s" key from your keyboard, or is it that hard for you to put an "s" before "he'? You don't have to go out of your way to have basic human decency. For all you people saying "maybe an MMO isn't for you", I could shoot the same comment at you for failing to have a shred of basic social interaction with strangers who wish to be identified by their chosen pronoun.

Hi there, its the internet, dont take all of it as an insult.

As a general rule of thumb "Guy until proven otherwise"
If the mistake happens, just inform them you're a lady. Also depending
on where you live some things like "he" and "guys" are not
gender linked.

I'm sorry it bothers you but don't let it. Things like that are
not about lambasting your sexual being, but mostly because
its shorter/easier to chat like that. It has nothing to do with
who you are behind the computer.

Hope that helps you understand what may be going on and how
to go about it.

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Originally Posted by Kimmy_Dee

Not only is the assumption that I apparently "must" be a guy rather insulting, but it's also kind of a painful one. I'm a trans woman.

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I was wondering how this could possibly be an issue worth making a topic about, and then i got to this sentence. First off, this is an MMORPG, males playing as females isnt only common its pretty much expected. Second, there is no logical reason why someone getting your gender wrong on an MMO should ever be considered "insulting", man, woman or transwoman aside.


It's an MMO. In my experience, if you're talking to a female player, using either male or female character, you will at some point be corrected. It's just sort of a natural reaction to being called out of your gender to correct someone. Me personally, like im sure most people here, just get tired of assuming wrong and default to a slightly more accurate one -- "majority of the female characters on MMOs are dudes."


TL;DR

If you're proud of being transgender, who you are, you should grow some thicker skin and act like it. Especially in this situation, since the sex of the character being played is even less accurate than in real life.

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Originally Posted by Odett

How is referring to someone who plays a female character with a female name as "she" catering to them? How is that self-entitlement? Are you missing the "s" key from your keyboard, or is it that hard for you to put an "s" before "he'? You don't have to go out of your way to have basic human decency. For all you people saying "maybe an MMO isn't for you", I could shoot the same comment at you for failing to have a shred of basic social interaction with strangers who wish to be identified by their chosen pronoun.

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I'm pretty sure this entire statement is catering to them... guess not.

Guess we should just stop talking in dungeons. Never know who you will offend. Maybe they need to have a 5 minute window before you can start each dungeon so we can read everyones profiles and know what may or may not offend them.

Or people can just stop taking things said by strangers over the internet so seriously. If someone calls you the wrong gender, correct them and it will likely be the end of it. Don't instead get offended by a simple mistake.

Edit: I know I sound like a completely unsensitive prick, but I can only imagine how bad it gets taken when people in the game really act like jerks. I have seen some pretty toxic people in games. There are people that are genuinely trying to insult you, so I hope the more sensitive individuals aren't taking those jerks words to heart as well. This is the internet and everything directed towards you shouldn't be taken too seriously or you make yourself vulnerable.

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Getting this ass-backwards society to finally treat women and men as equals and not cater to men by default bad.

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Didn't see this before, and though I feel it is way off topic to do so, I feel the need to respond to it anyways.

There will never be gender equality as long as:
1. Men are expected to be the only ones that ever have to touch a toilet seat.
2. Women expect to be able to hit men and get away with it.
3. Women want chivalry to be a thing.
4. Women go out to bars and clubs expecting free drinks from men.

I'm sure there are others, but this is just a few off the top of my head. Maybe talk to some of your fellow women about why the genders are not equal yet in 2014.

EDIT: Sorry about the "fellow women" part if this quote did not come from a woman. I didn't take the time to figure out who it originated from.

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Originally Posted by reality_check

These as examples of organizations "catering" to woman to make money off of them. How is this a positive thing?

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It's not "catering", its "marketing." There is a subtle difference.

By this logic, McDonalds is catering to humans and is wrong for persuading them to eat food. Health dismissed of course.

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Originally Posted by infinitezero

Didn't see this before, and though I feel it is way off topic to do so, I feel the need to respond to it anyways.

There will never be gender equality as long as:
1. Men are expected to be the only ones that ever have to touch a toilet seat.
2. Women expect to be able to hit men and get away with it.
3. Women want chivalry to be a thing.

I'm sure there are others, but this is just 3 off the top of my head.

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This has little to do with gender equality and more to do with social norms.

Women are not expected to hit men and get away with it. I guess nobody told you, but the court doesn't work that way. Certian woman foolishly believe they can hit men and get away with it. Which leads to lots of hilarious videos of them getting critical'd on the internet.


Chivalry isn't a bad thing...if it's deserved. Women who want unconditional chivalry are indeed delusional though.

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Maybe its a maturity thing as I have noticed younger mtf women are more prone to taking offense than older women.

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It's mostly about how long since they socially transitioned. It's been 8 years here, and even in real life, I'm way less susceptible.

It's just plain self-confidence, due to lived experience. Of course you need to be gendered correctly by the right people (family, friends, romantic interests), but eventually, what everyone else might think matters much less.

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These as examples of organizations "catering" to woman to make money off of them. How is this a positive thing?

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Having options is a good thing, regardless of other people making profit off them.

If you have clothing option #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6 and #7 for the same activity/weather, and I only have #1 and #2, this might mean you spending more on your options, but it means I have way less of them. In this instance YOU have an advantage.

And don't feel like you HAVE to own all 7 outfits. OCDness is not the responsibility of society.

And yes, its a female privilege (that I now have, too), to be able to wear more different types, colors, fabrics, lengths, cuts, of clothing. My wardrobe is huge and I'm on a budget - and spend very little on clothing. I still have HUGE choice compared to my boyfriend restricted to just a few, and barred from many (unless he's after a beating or open discrimination).

ETA: and DON'T say this means society hates women!
If it hated women, it would beat women who wear dresses and skirt even more than it does men.

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Originally Posted by Odett

I could shoot the same comment at you for failing to have a shred of basic social interaction with strangers who wish to be identified by their chosen pronoun.

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I wonder, how exactly is someone supposed to know a stranger's chosen pronoun to be identified by? And I'm talking about people who have just met and haven't exchanged any pronoun clarification communication.
I could assume that since its a female char, it wants to be called "she" and I could be wrong since not all players who play an opposite gender role play or what have you. Either way, the assumption has a 50/50 chance of being wrong and isn't meant to purposely be insulting.

You picked a Lalafell which are so small short don't really have too many distinguishable features that let you differentiate male from female only the hair and even at that point its hard to tell. Most of the time I can't tell if a Lalafell is male or female.

Well if it's a very very very serious issue we do have two name slots. You might just name yourself Miss Sue or Lady Jenni? You know putting an effeminate title in the first name. Also, the game allows for us to abbreviate people's names. I don't know if anyone does this but just saying they might not even see your full name if they have abbreviations on.

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Originally Posted by Edellis

Women are not expected to hit men and get away with it. I guess nobody told you, but the court doesn't work that way. Certian woman foolishly believe they can hit men and get away with it. Which leads to lots of hilarious videos of them getting critical'd on the internet.

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As well as some not so hilarious videos of 50 men jumping on one guy for hitting a woman that clearly deserved it (guess that's the mens fault though). But what I was really hoping for were your thoughts on the toilet seat situation. ^_^

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Originally Posted by infinitezero

As well as some not so hilarious videos of 50 men jumping on one guy for hitting a woman that clearly deserved it (guess that's the mens fault though). But what I was really hoping for were your thoughts on the toilet seat situation. ^_^

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we're all using the toilet wrong anyway... we're supposed to take our pants off completely and sit facing the side with the tank. its like a little table you can sit your quills and ink on so you can write letters on your thinking chair. =)

I tend to use "they" if I'm referring to a stranger, but in my own mind I just assume everyone is a guy unless I can hear them on voice chat, because let's face it, the majority of gamers are guys.

Whoh, long thread and I skipped a couple pages in the middle. Just a couple points:

EVERY player who has a female character has chosen to portray a female character, and the pronouns for females in English are she/her/hers.
EVERY player who has a male character has chosen to portray a male character, and the pronouns for males in English are he/him/his.
The player's real-life gender has absolutely no bearing on either of those statements.

If you go with the character's gender to choose your pronouns, then you are absolutely guaranteed to be correct. It may or may not be the only correct answer, but it is always a correct answer. For instance, when I (a female player) am playing Y'kayah or Navarre (male characters), then either set of pronouns is correct. (I prefer male pronouns in that case, as calling Y'kayah or Navarre "she" just sounds weird. But I can accept either as correct.) On the other hand, when I (as a female player) am playing Dylise or Tatala (female characters), then the only correct set of pronouns is the female ones. Similarly, when a male player has female characters, both sets of pronouns are correct, but when he plays male characters, only the male pronouns are correct.

So to everyone who's been arguing about what the default language usage is for when there's no information to indicate gender either way: Your arguments are irrelevant, because that's not the case here. (Well, it may be the case if you're talking about a /shout conversation where you don't see the character and can't tell from the name, but the OP was talking about when she's actually in a party with people and they still got it wrong.) If you know the character's gender, then you know of one correct set of pronouns, and another that may or may not also be correct. Go with the pronouns you know to be correct, i.e. the ones matching the character you're talking about.


Another point, this time regarding the likelihood of male players: Currently, video game players overall are only slightly more likely to be male. It's very close to half and half. However, it's the Action and Sports game genres that draw the most male players. Those two genres are overwhelming male dominated. But how do you suppose that males, who overwhelmingly dominate the most popular genre and another of the top few genres, are only barely hanging on to a majority overall? It's because other genres, like say RPGs for instance, have more female players. Face it guys, you're the ones in the minority here, and it's only the fact that most of the women you've been playing with haven't bothered to correct you that has allowed you to nurture the illusion that you're still the majority you may have been a few decades ago.

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Originally Posted by infinitezero

As well as some not so hilarious videos of 50 men jumping on one guy for hitting a woman that clearly deserved it (guess that's the mens fault though). But what I was really hoping for were your thoughts on the toilet seat situation. ^_^

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The toilet seat? Who cares? In the mornings, when im tired and havent had my coffee, i'm going to sit my ass down on that toilet seat and swingset while i piss.

You're using the toilet. Nobody is supposed to know anyway.

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Originally Posted by infinitezero

LOL, I forget what that's from but I remember someone talking about eating a bowl of cereal like that or something. Hilarious. :D

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South Park episode about Sir John Harrington XD

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Originally Posted by Edellis

The toilet seat? Who cares? In the mornings, when im tired and havent had my coffee, i'm going to sit my ass down on that toilet seat and swingset while i piss.

You're using the toilet. Nobody is supposed to know anyway.

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I was just messin' around. Glad to see you have a sense of humor about it as well though. lol

This is over dramatic. Theres absolutely no good reason to clearify your gender to the public on a MMO other than attention grabbing.

A good troll thread.

Everyone got baited so hard. Notice how the OP has disappeared from this thread?

Who cares, these are fun reads mang

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Originally Posted by Marowit

Everyone got baited so hard. Notice how the OP has disappeared from this thread?

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In summation:"You idiots will argue over anything"

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But how do you suppose that males, who overwhelmingly dominate the most popular genre and another of the top few genres, are only barely hanging on to a majority overall? It's because other genres, like say RPGs for instance, have more female players. Face it guys, you're the ones in the minority here

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A survey from EQ2 revealed that female players were 21% of surveyed players. Participating in the survey was anonymous and rewarded with some event ingame item.

So while you might be right that sports and action games are male-dominated genres. Those genres DIDN'T EVEN EXIST in the 1980s. It was platformers, prototypes of future RPGs, adventure games and games with guns where everything can kill you, also beat them up and cheap (as in 'life is cheap, no/few power-ups, you die in one hit') shoot them ups.

When people talk about "real gamers", they usually EXCLUDE the "dudebros" who only play sports games and CoD. And the other genres are still male dominated.

Oh and btw, trans people are overrepresented in gaming, especially MMOs, compared to their population ratio (which is only 0.2%).

All I can say is I am surprised this is what rubs people the wrong way now a days.