Being Gendered Correctly

[Marowit]

I fail to see an issue here to be honest. If I know someone is X I'll refer to them as such, but if I don't I'm not going to go out of my way to confirm a gender and will default to he until corrected. This isn't me trying to be mean or evil it's just making the safest bet when 9 out of 10 players are guys. I'm not going to call everyone by their characters gender just so I can be "right" that one time it's not a dude behind the keyboard.

[Takeva]

I fail to see an issue here to be honest. If I know someone is X I'll refer to them as such, but if I don't I'm not going to go out of my way to confirm a gender and will default to he until corrected. This isn't me trying to be mean or evil it's just making the safest bet when 9 out of 10 players are guys. I'm not going to call everyone by their characters gender just so I can be "right" that one time it's not a dude behind the keyboard.

It shouldn't be females fault a male wants to play a female character. That reasoning is ridiculous. I can see why OP would get hurt. None of you have to live with the challenge of being transgender. Character is female, must be a female. Looks like a girl, must be a girl. They shouldn't play a female if they don't want to be called a she. Why cater to that? Girls do exist online.

[AiChyan]

a large portion of people playing this game are males who roll as female toons. I'm a female rolling as a female toon and get the "he" treatment as well. I used to constantly correct people but I got to the point where it felt tiresome and I just stopped caring.

I know it impacts you on a much deeper level than it does to me, but there isn't much to do. In gaming people assume you are a guy until you say otherwise.

[Purrfectstorm]

31%? ORLY?

Sorry, the 31% is the percentage of adult women who play. I rechecked the report I read and see that the total percentage of female players (of all ages) is 45%. Source: http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2013.pdf

[jars]

that's as useless as saying "45% of tv viewers are women"

there are tons of different genres of games and the breakdown is going to vary wildly between them

[Marowit]

It shouldn't be females fault a male wants to play a female character. That reasoning is ridiculous. I can see why OP would get hurt. None of you have to live with the challenge of being transgender. Character is female, must be a female. Looks like a girl, must be a girl. They shouldn't play a female if they don't want to be called a she. Why cater to that? Girls do exist online.

You're right I'm not transgender. To be honest though I have to wonder how much of this problem is real and how much of it is the OP being mad random strangers don't acknowledge something they don't know is happening. Had the OP not said it I myself would have never guessed they used to be a man.

[Penguinmayhem]

that's as useless as saying "45% of tv viewers are women"

there are tons of different genres of games and the breakdown is going to vary wildly between them

Never mind that those are both statistics presented without supporting evidence or qualifying explanations. They could mean anything. A company can claim "87% of people think our product is great!" and they don't have to state who those people are. They could be their own employees. Or only certain demographics.

[Purrfectstorm]

Also I'd like to point out that one's own comfort zone is not necessarily a standard one should project onto other people. Replies like "not a big deal", "get over it", etc. are not compassionate responses to this issue. It may not be a big deal to you but similarly you probably have issues that others, myself included, wouldn't particularly care about. Would you want us to respond to you in the same manner?

How about: You have a point. Yeah that sucks. Maybe this is something I should take into account in future online interactions. Calling a person "too sensitive" is a convenient way of ignoring their needs. Nobody is saying you're a jerk for referring to everyone as "he." You didn't know. Now you do. You can change the behavior, it's really not that hard.

I think a good rule of thumb is that people are addressed by the pronouns of the character they're playing. I used to work in HR and an associate once came to me and asked how to address a trans person who wanted to use the fitting room. I suggested that they use the pronouns of the person's gender presentation. Of course, this isn't always going to work for everyone, but it seems like a respectful approach, one that could easily be applied to the game world.

[Purrfectstorm]

that's as useless as saying "45% of tv viewers are women"

there are tons of different genres of games and the breakdown is going to vary wildly between them

At least my assumptions would be based on some kind of research. It seems like your assumption that almost all FFXIV players are men is just pulled out of nowhere. I posted where I got my information. Where are you getting yours? Personal experience? People like have different experiences you know? Gah!

[Mcshiggs]

I can see why OP would get hurt. None of you have to live with the challenge of being transgender..

I really don't care if someone is transgender, gay, straight or whatever. If I call someone he that is actually female, or woman in a man's body, if they correct me, I'll type she. I've had people I've called he that said they were female, so I called them she, but that didn't stop them from calling me Viz when the name I choose was Vizzer. Did you ever think that could bother me? The thing is people can complain about anything they want and say it offends them. I'm not saying he because I assume you are male, I say he because it is an accepted shorthand right now. There is no social injustice about this, this is just someone looking for something to complain about, if you can't handle that you will be dealing with people, then maybe you should pay more attention to the warning about online interactions. I see a lot of the LGBT complain about being treated differently, but when we do something like this where people treat you the same as everyone else, a thread gets made complaining about how hurtful it is.