Do you prefer hiding your gender online?
I only try to hide at places (apps) if I received a lot of messages from scammers. Changing my avatar or info to a more neutral one discouraged scammers. I didn't like being a women when I was young and more androgynous. As I aged and matured (and became curvy) I've accepted that being feminine is OK. My mind will always be rather masculine, but my female hormones dominate a lot of my interests and behaviors.
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AQ score: 44
Aspie mom to two autistic sons (21 & 20 )
I usually prefer to at least disclose versus it being immediately obvious, especially on male dominated websites. I don't post pictures etc nor do I have a very girly writing style- or I don't think so anyway- so I don't get a lot of creepy reactions regardless. Sometimes there's bad, unoriginal jokes if I delved into the neckbeard corner of the internet, which I don't really mind. Part of me does wish that they would at least come up with their own bad jokes about a girl talking to them internet, if one must be made.
I do like being kind of an amorphous blob online where people will engage with my ideas directly. Otherwise, many react based my perceived identity traits. Often people still end up making assumptions, like that I must be a man if I disagree with them. Somehow this annoys me more than stereotyping me based on my true traits. Still, I don't like for people to validate my ideas or listen to me only because they think my perceived identity trait means I deserve that.
I've ended up in incel adjacent communities online and the discussions when they realize I'm a woman are funny. They're all prepared for a fight. Then they don't know what to do when I politely disagree with them, like with a joke or similar, and then continue talking to them normally. I wouldn't want these types of communities to be able to seek me out, however. This is one of those situations where being able to disclose when it's relevant is nice.
If gender wasn't displayed next to the username on wrongplanet, I suppose my approach here would somewhat standard. I would leave the gender information in my profile or not choose one, but my profile picture is a fish and my username is a fish genus. Not exactly a secret, but many wouldn't notice and I'm not going to excite random creeps with an ancient fish. Since I did have to choose a gender, I however wouldn't choose a false one, as I detest lying.
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