Being Gendered Correctly

[TeaTimeBear]

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.

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.

[Skivvy]

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.

[Tinsley]

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!

[Remn]

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.... -*-

[Melithea]

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.

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.

i call everyone by their character's forename.

"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.

[Assirra]

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.

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.

[TeaTimeBear]

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.

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.

[SirSaber]

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.

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.

[nesh]

Believe it or not, no one is being personal.

+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

[Ryihito]

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