Being Gendered Correctly

[Tharian]

That's just creepy. So, the only way you will believe a female is a female is if you chat with her personally. Okay, good luck wirh that.

In my case I will take them at their word. Otherwise I just go based off what gender their character is. Though in some cases with Lalafell it is kind of difficult to tell depending on the hairstyle of the character in question. Though I will be pretty upfront about my own gender unless I am "In-Character" at the time, but that usually will only happen with people that already know my real gender.

[Elvie]

It seems that the objections in this thread to the OP's perfectly reasonable suggestion that people gender characters in game according to their presented gender boil down to:

"I don't care" and "most players are male".

Neither of these are valid arguments against the proposal.

To those boys who object so much to the idea: How exactly does it hurt you if players are refererred to as the gender of their in-game character. If you are wrong the player is free to correct you or not as they choose. If they are playing a different gender to their real life one then they have still made a choice to present as a different gender in game, and have literally no cause for offense.

One point being missed is that the reason it is offensive to many women to be assumed male whilst presenting as a female character is that we have spent years being told we do not exist. Even in this thread there are those who insist that because they *think* 90% of players or more are male, then that must be true. I am not a special snowflake for being female whilst playing a game. And given the number of women players I know who choose to pretend they are male in mmos, I really wouldn't be trusting my assumptions that "everyone is a dude unless they correct me". That's, honestly, a bit of a delusional position to take. And there are plenty of valid studies out there that prove me right. Go google, you might learn something. Make sure you check the methodology on the studies too. The ones that account for things like type of game funnily enough are the ones which support what I and other women here are saying: We exist, and in greater numbers than the average mmo gamer likes to believe.

[Crimen]

Most players will never think that being classified as the wrong gender to be insulting. I understand your case is sensitive, but no one means you harm, and it's something you need to deal with since no one is going to think "Oh, for x or y reason, this person might be sensitive to what we refer to them as". I always refer to people as the character's gender, but you cannot force everyone else to do the same. A guy I once spoke to on mumble laughed and said "Okay, so you are a girl. I just assume everyone who plays a girl to be a guy until they get on voice chat." And the only reason for this is cause of so many guys pretending to be chicks, or simply like to play as one. It sort of becomes a habit to expect a guy, I guess.

[Seif]

English is not my native tongue so this is a honest question.

Is referring to someone as "that guy" gender neutral?
If not then what would you suggest would be gender neutral term in situations where you're not sure who's playing the character?

As a side note I'm NOT a roleplayer but I do think that using chat is our characters talking to one another so using the gender of the used character is preferred.
HOWEVER rarely if EVER do I even seen the character I'm talking to. My player character names are switched off (the game looks so much better this way!) so the names I'm sending the tell to are names I see on my pt list or chat box. There is NO WAY to tell the sex of that character unless the name itself is very feminine. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've made the "guy" assumption sometimes too but NOT based on the character's appearance or sex at all.

[Pandastirfry]

English is not my native tongue so this is a honest question.

Is referring to someone as "that guy" gender neutral?
If not then what would you suggest would be gender neutral term in situations where you're not sure who's playing the character?

Technically... Yes... Idiomaticaly ... No.

Really the only way to do it is "that person" or "them" with the latter being the least exact as "them" or "they" has various different uses.
Basically, using the dictionary definition, "Guy" in its singular form is gender specific, meaning a man or boy, conversely in its plural form it is defined as gender neutral, as persons of either sex. To make matters even more complex, specifically in video games, "Guy" is often used as a slang term for character sprites or "lives" regardless of gender of the character being referred to.
This is one of the reasons English is a confusing language to most non-native speakers. Our abundance of homophones, lack of gender specific nouns/verb tenses, and baffleing grammatical rules between spoken and written can make it difficult. (For even native speakers in some cases)

[Cosmoswan]

it's lack of men that telling of their loves for women in this post ^^ so i purpose to be one of them : THERE ARE ALSO MEN WHO LOVE TO PLAYYYYY WITH YOU AND NEVER COULD SAY NO TO A FEMALE CHARAAAAACTERR <3

sexiest society : brrrrrrrr No No nO never see that in FF

So we are proude , so menheart don't support to be tricked by falsename female character , so all apologies if sometimes we aren't 100%confiant at first time =/

[Moheeheeko]

Seriously, some people need to get some thicker skin.

It's an honest mistake, deal with it.

Jesus.

[Macka]

Seriously, some people need to get some thicker skin.

It's an honest mistake, deal with it.

Jesus.

Who Hey Zeus

[Noshpan]

Regardless of what gender I choose to play for my characters, I am frequently referred to as "he". I don't bother correcting strangers. I don't need to correct people who already know me, whom have heard me speak. Sometimes I prefer it so that I won't get the "ur a gurl? tits or gtfo", "oh u dont want to sho pics? must be fat & ugly lol" or any other string of derogatory language regarding my biological gender.

[Rynia]

Unfortunately for you OP, the rules and norms around gendering people correctly are actually not very well-known at all outside of the trans community. It must hurt, but really you have no choice but to just put up with it - social norms aren't going to change that quickly, even on the internet. Especially on the internet xD The vast majority of people have never even encountered a trans person (knowingly, at least) and thus are unaware of the struggles you face so won't even think twice before just assuming something about someone's gender.

As this thread has shown already, you won't get much sympathy here. I wish it were otherwise =/

I personally just go by character gender. If I misgender someone and they tell me, I'll roll with it. A lot of people actually assume I'm a bloke for whatever reason xD