Forums » Smalltalk » Gender Identity in RL and RP

Well, I've played male characters that LOOK effeminite, such as elves and whatnot, but again, they always end up being much more masculine than feminine. I'm not going to lie and say I don't have my feminine side; I love pretty things, like nature, and flowers, and rainbows, and things like that, I just lack the ability to get in touch with it like some of our more gifted male-to-femme role-players.

I am comfortably your average straight young single adult male. Nothing particularly spectacular about this fact. I fail to see whether being male or female or androgynous or ambiguous about you gender should matter. We come here together to RP, to share stories, to gain insight into the psyche, to temporarily escape the dull norms of an often tough and un-accepting society. We find solace in this escape, a temporary sanctuary where we can be and do what we want with other that share he same desires. Your question provokes the thought of whether it matters who we are as soon as we are AFK. I say it shouldn't matter. I could be a complete phony and not be who I say I am at all. I could be hiding who I really am for any number of reasons, those reasons being my own and your reasons being yours. Simple as that.

It doesn't really matter. I was simply curious about where people here stood, since I know a number of the people I used to play with on Furcadia are cross players. It also interested me from a psychological POV, as human sexuality is going to be one of my areas of study and probably pursuit. The nice thing about the roleplaying community here is that it's so diverse that the questions got a lot of answers that are both alike and completely different.

I've really been enjoying reading everyone's repsonses - and I'm somewhat surprised the questions were so popular to answer!

Perhaps he fails to see why it matters because he's what is set up as the 'norm'.

Someone like myself, I very much so enjoy roleplaying something I can never fully achieve IRL. This was a nice topic to bring up and get to explore my feelings about it, as I don't personally sit here and think about it without prompting - and I'm very glad for that prompt.

I second this!

I am a female, I identify as a female and am most definitely cisgender; however, I am prone to streaks of masculinity. I tend to enjoy equal amounts of both feminine and masculine activities and hobbies. Examples of this would be I enjoy shopping (to a degree, and I rarely admit this), one of my favorite accessories are my shoes and jewelry, and I tend to be OCD about my makeup and hair; however, I also enjoy fighting, hiking mountains, anything with a blade, shooting guns, and generally playing in the mud. I'm not into stereotypical "female" bands (like One Direction), but rather my music generally consists of heavy metal which on a psychological level is more associated with men and masculinity.

For me, roleplay is about telling stories. I like to tell stories, but I also like to challenge myself. as a pansexual I don't find sexuality overly difficult to play. I have characters who are heterosexual, homosexual, as well as bi and pansexual. That being said, gender identity is a whole different ball game. I play male characters, more as a way to tell the story because stereotypically males are more intimidating than females from a story-telling POV. That is not to say I don't play females who, in their own right, are domineering and violent. I do.

For me roleplaying is and has always been about telling stories I keep locked in my head with the assistance of other people. I don't really associate the gender identity or sexuality of my characters with myself, because to me they are characters in a story I'm telling.

That's just me, and that's not to say I don't see some of myself in my characters. I do, and I care deeply about my creations - but that doesn't mean I have to look at them as part of me.

Before I came to Internet and even long after that, I never really thought about these things. Only when I met and befriended bunch of gay and transsexual people who seemed to pay a whole lot of attention to gender I started to think about it, too. But not much, because I still perceive it quite simply.

I'm a girl, in real life I dress in pretty things, mostly embroidered jeans, I like my share of jewelry, but don't bother with makeup. I like being pretty, but I don't make it my goal and can very comfortably dress in simple clothes when going out to photograph because I will have to scramble up some muddy hill. I have my girlish whims and good deal of female logic, but I don't think I am stereotypical female and try not to stereotype men.

I've played with barbies and next hour with toy cars, because both were outlet of my imagination, I created stories with them, not thought about gender things. And however it may be, I feel that I am girl and am usually perceived as one. Even in MMO's, in guilds where people have not seen my characters (9 in 10 cases, my characters in MMOs are girls), understand that I am a girl and I don't mind it (except for the popular opinion I am not a good player and get by generosity of male peers).

In RP world, I play good share of male characters, I've even written stories from man's point of view and it's one of my best to date. I find them interesting to play and in fact would like to do it more. I especially like playing duo characters - man and woman. Still, I will only play heterosexual characters, not because I have something against other sexual orientations, but because I just don't see why I should make them bi or homosexual and I just don't feel them that way when I get down to writing them. Perhaps one day such character will come to me, but for now I don't feel like my character list is lacking something because of this.

I hardly care for gender of my friends, because what matters is their personality, how they treat themselves, others and me. I have had dear friends whom I'm not even sure what gender they were. I have ended up having more male friends, but that's a different issue.

All in all, I think people in modern society pay it too much attention, all this sexuality and gender thing. It's often raised as more important aspect than personality, nearly as if gender would be the thing to purely affect it, too.

Transguy here. While it makes most of my non-cisgendered friends upset, that's what I identify as. I've got alts of all kinds of sexes and gender identities.

The only thing I've got to add to the discussion is that it's a good way to practice masculine and feminine mannerisms and speech patterns. They're much easier to identify in text. Writing is a less stressful way of testing out new ways to express one's gender.

That being said, I don't feel as if the characters are extensions of my IRL self but I do identify with them in some ways. You mainly write what you know, eh?

Very nice prompt here.

And here is where my nervous, shy, yet rambling habits come into play since I don't post on forums much due to the AMGPUBLICPEOPLE factor.

Anywho.

OOC wise? As most usually gather from my profile here on RPR I often refer to myself as 'it' and when people ask me about my gender, or talk to me I simply allow them to assume what they will based upon my speech patterns and terms I use in conversation. (Over the internet of course, people who see me IRL will know im a female. WHOOPS! Cat out of the bag alert! just kidding.) I mostly do this simply because I don't really see myself as having a gender identity, it's just always something that has confused me over the years as I tend to display habits and mannerisms of both equally and often at the same time. Perhaps that's why some people who speak to me often give me a male identity over the internet, which I'm fine with and actually far more comfortable with. (that and when my wife calls me her husband I smile like I just dashed through a field of flowers. It makes my heart all fluttery)

IC wise? I play mainly males, mostly homosexual though I do have a few Bi ones under my wing simply because I can relate, understand, and fully immerse myself into their character and any relationships romantic or otherwise they may have with the other characters that interact with them. I tried playing a female once, Zeneth she's called and she still stands to be my experiment with female characters to which I've had only mild success with. I also have quite a mixture of various personalities among my male characters so I'm entirely unsure of why I have this little quirk of mine.. being unable to get into the heads of female characters I mean. Perhaps it's the guy in me who sees a woman and goes "Oh jesus, this is far to complicated for me. Give me a rubix cube, that is -much- easier to solve" (my wife is now laughing).

And there is my two bits. Now back to lurking. *hides in the bushes*

I'm not a ten-year old boy, I'm a man! A biiiig strong man!

Didn't want to respond to this but I couldn't resist.

It's funny to think that nine-ten years ago, I just didn't get it. I was raised to believe that a man should be a man, and a woman, a woman; which, in hind sight helped me become the strong, relatively masculine short-guy I am today.

But because of my upbringing, I was pretty callous and cold towards the transgendered folk, never understanding why they would be so 'confused' on what they were, as I was sure as hell I was a man.

Then a transgendered guy saved my life.

Now, sexual identity means nothing to me when it comes to people.

Sorry, random though.

I stopped playing male characters because other people made the experience insufferably terrible

There's like this unspoken rule that you're in competition with all other male characters in the story in every possible aspect

Not even just fighting or being cool or whatever, but literally every attribute imaginable

It's like we get it dude, you're mysterious as ****, nobody cares

These days my male characters play minor supporting roles

As for my female characters, their gender really isn't even a thing, I don't do romance or anything like that

One time though somebody thought it would be a good idea to hit on one of my characters by having his remove his upper layer of clothing (?) - they were total strangers and in a public place where food was being served

I hope that's not how that guy thinks you're supposed to approach strangers in real life

I'm a transman and the genders and sexes of my characters are as varied as the count, size and colour of my many many freckles. It's not something I tend to associate with myself, though I have had outsiders assume there was some link. As a matter of fact, I was once even coached about how playing women in roleplay made me seem "ingenuine" as someone who is transgendered, and I cannot put into words the amount of disgust or insult I felt when I realized that someone could jump to make that conclusion.

I simply do not see it. If I play a female character, in their eyes I become less male myself. Yet as I very much enjoy roleplaying a lion I cannot help but wonder, does that make me less human as well?

Silly, silly.

The first part makes me want to hulk smash - the second makes me laugh. GTBTFVDS

Hmm. I am female-bodied and identify pretty soundly as female, too. I've never been much for stereotypically 'feminine things', though, aside from my love of baking (which is actually a masculine thing in some parts of the world), dance, and needlecrafting. I don't wear makeup, I don't style my hair unless it's in my way, I barely ever wear skirts or dresses. I am married, but I don't want kids. I don't have problems with women or girls who do, or any other number of things, though! They're just not for me. I definitely consider myself a feminist, too.

I play, largely, female-bodied and -identifying characters, too. I've got a couple of lads in my stable, but they're vastly outnumbered by my cast of women and girls. I've got very few characters outside of the gender binary; the one I've played most is a sexless being who identifies as female.

Some of my ladies aren't very feminine; some of them are very much so. And some of them take gender considerations and just kind of run away with it all. My wizard Rhaetia adores fancy dresses and Victorian-style balls and gossiping about the latest societal doings... when she's not enjoying adventuring into the uncharted wilderness and making messes of monsters. My valkyrie, Serenne, is a battle-hardened grump who doesn't brook crap from anyone and regularly kills people to send offerings to her god... and who dearly wants to have children some day and devote herself to motherhood.

I've been told by others, in conversations similar to these, that I'm a bit of an oddity, with my collection of characters being almost overwhelmingly female. I'm not sure why that is, personally. Perhaps it ties a little bit into my feminist beliefs: I want people to see and understand that women can be many things besides arm candy or decorative pieces that are seen and not heard, that they, too, have motivations and goals in life, that they have personalities, that they aren't just around to make a male hero look good or to give him motivation or what-have-you. That women are people, too, I guess.

I've been asked why I don't play more men; I usually reply that when I'm struck with inspiration that feels overwhelmingly male, I make a character that way. Otherwise, my default is female. I figure that enough people play dudes out there that it's okay if I shirk a bit in that regard.

All these reponses are really interesting, though! I haven't read the thread entirely, yet, but I'm definitely going to give it a browse when I have some time later.

I laughed so hard I couldn't breath for a minute when I read that.

I've never actually looked at myself as a person, much less thought about how it effects my roleplay style. I'd like to think there is a significant difference between my male and female characters, though like others have said, I don't stop and think about what a man/woman would do in the situation, just simply how the character themselves would react.

I was pretty surprised when someone said I was lady like at all when I met them for the first time. Most often I find that people think I'm more guy-like, but from someone who hadn't always known me, they pegged me as a lady. I've been referred to as 'he' as well as 'she' online, and I don't particularly care which I receive. Odds are I'll only tell if someone asks.

There doesn't appear to be the same venom in the community as when I first started, ten or so years ago, where your gender made a BIG DEAL as to what your character's gender was. I can recall situations where people refused to continue to roleplay with me because they found my gender was different from my character. Somehow, this was creepy, and down right wrong. I never understood the difference, really, and I'm glad to see there doesn't appear to be the same intolerance as when I was younger. (Infact, there were times where I'd actually go as far as to hide what my gender was, in order to continue being able to roleplay. )

Tl;dr: I play both genders, in extreme short. I'm also glad there doesn't seem to be the old intolerance of playing the opposite gender as when I was young. c:

I find it interesting that you have felt this more for male characters; I've often felt as if all female characters were locked in unnecessary bizarre competition, often over who is "the prettiest."

I recall one time a stranger entered a public scene, and within a few minutes wrote a post wherein she mentioned that her breasts were nicer than my character's breasts, because her character had never had children. Totally out of the blue. And no, she didn't whisper first to consult whether it was okay or even true that she make this assertion. There hadn't been any overt discussion of who was prettiest, youngest or perkiest. She took it upon herself to inform the room that this was a FACT. It was the oddest bit of godmoding I've ever encountered.

This is an extreme example but I have often felt as if when I posted one of my female characters doing something, another female character felt the need to tell the room that they were More -- more graceful, more beautiful, more well spoken, a better singer, a better dance, a better dresser, a better sewer, a better swords woman, etc.

I have never heard of this first hand before, just vague rumors that it was true in some places! Where were you playing that this was an issue?

I've sort of experienced it for both genders in roleplays. Besides the competition between genders themselves, I also noticed that people generally favor different stereotypes for genders, and characters who don't live up to this stereotype are generally ignored.

It's kind of hard not to notice that a pretty/buff guy with an asshole attitude who's the knight in shining armor for that one special lady gets a loooot more attention than the average Joe who's neither buff nor pretty nor a heroic knight saving a damsel in distress. It's always been really difficult for me to get RP with certain male characters because I intentionally made them flawed in looks and personality (like any regular human being), and for some reason this tends to curb interest from people, especially female players. It puzzles me. Does the average Joe just sound like nothing exciting ever happens in his life so he must be boring as hell, or are women really shallow enough to only go for the handsome heroic types even in roleplay?

On the other hand, I find flawed female characters are much easier to get RP for, which is ironic compared to my experience playing males. The notion of flawless perfection being a must in female characters has worn thin in the areas where I play, so when I create a female character who is overweight, has mental disorders and struggles to find a footing in life, she gets a ton more attention for solid roleplay. On yet another hand, if I create a heavily sexualized character who's 'perfect' in body, PMs flood my inbox with requests for RP that are usually shallow in nature.

Next to this, I notice that people have a tendency to overthrow other characters and top them as 'the best' in a lot more areas than just the gender stereotype. I often run into characters magically being the best at everything, and it's really often not related to their gender at all. Just the player's desire to be recognized as a hero who does everything better than everyone else. It makes me wonder how much of the gender competition is actually gender competition, as opposed to 'I just have to be the best no matter what'.

I encountered this a lot in the early days of my playing on Furcadia. Every other profile had some sort of rant on how 'if you're a dude playing a chick, I'm not interested' and vice versa. I've always found it absurd and didn't understand it for the longest time. Then I realized something:

I think the reason this was so prevalent then is because a lot of people take roleplay more seriously as persona play - it's not fiction to them, but another warped reality. They're roleplaying their fantasy self (e.g. a straight chick playing a straight chick with superhero powers) and if they fancy a male character, they expect the player to be a dude because they're a chick playing a chick. They end up projecting in-character feelings on the person behind the screen. I always believed this to be the biggest source of furry drama (which is where I find persona play the most often) because often they can't distance themselves from the roleplay and take everything very personal. What happens in-character in a roleplay is super srs bsns to them and determines the course of their lives, so unless they're bi/omnisexual the other person's gender matters.

However, I asked someone about this once, and they said that a chick playing a dude was 'dishonest' and made that person a 'liar', which... is equally as bizarre because everything you do in-character is make-belief and pretend play.

Generally all over Imag, in furcadia. :c There were a few sites that I played on before that, like aftemathzone, before it went wonk, that worked in a similar way. I'd imagine that the idea that they can't distance themselves is most likely true. I don't see how its lying, or something to that effect, should someone have a male character, when they're a female, or vice versa. But I have met people who can't separate, even outside of persona play.. and generally become disappointed, or outraged when I don't feel the same way, or they realize I'm nothing like my character.

Edit: I also failed to mention this was a long, long time ago.. I just assumed it still existed somewhere. xD

I've also noticed the whole competition thing. Fairly interesting, though I can't say I've ever felt the need for my characters to be THE BEST THERE EVER WAS (or at least better than everyone else in the room). I've had my share of characters that have acted out on a streak of jealousy, or because they were starved for attention - but never for just the reason to be the best of the best.

Though I have to say, I wish some random dude would take off his shirt in the middle of a restaurant and flaunt his muscles for reals. :c That would be hilarious.