Being mistaken for the opposite gender on the internet

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Most people on the internet think I'm male for some reason. I don't know if it's my username, writing style, avatar or just the default gender. My profile here says I'm female, but people here still think I'm male sometimes.

Your avatar looks a bit.....boyish.

I experienced that quite a lot in my teens through twenties. I was also mistaken for a much older person (online). In my teens people thought I was in my 40s.

^^This^^

There's a general assumption of maleness on the internet, unless there are good reasons to believe otherwise (such as a girl's name in the username, a "girly" avatar, frequently mentioning it in posts, or mentioning in male significant other- even male-dominated forums are more likely to assume you're female than a gay male if you do the last one). This is amplified on forums that are male-dominated, such as ones about sport, hip-hop, or a pervasive developmental disorder diagnosed much more often in males than females.

This.

On World of Warcraft, even though I only play female characters, people still assume I'm male. (Except when they randomly hit on me.)

I always thought you were a girl. No guy has "kisses" in his username. Also your icon looks girly to me.

There's no good reason for such an assumption of "maleness". It's mostly due to assumptions of men as default. People are also often assumed to be white, straight, and other privileged categories because those are considered to be the default.

As such, these are not really reasonable assumptions. But they are fairly constant.

^^^^ This, it does happen to me, even though only one applies. (race BTW in case you have not seen enough of my posts)

I am especially mistaken by certain people if they don't read enough when I mention being attracted to females but in generalities. Then it explodes when I start in on one of my feminist rants. Usually after I am on a forum a week or more no one has doubts, then my problem becomes one of convincing people I am not a TERF.

It is not just society presumes male - but on computers men are more prevalent in many of the spaces so it exacerbates the problem.

True, but it doesn't just randomly happen that men are more prevalent in those spaces. Like there are sociological reasons that women are actively discouraged or even harassed from such spaces.

I mean you know that, I just wanted to emphasize it.

DevilKisses, did you just change your icon because you don't want people to assume that you are a guy? How crappy that you might feel the need to do that.

I was once mistaken for a woman on a political simulation game related message board. But this was due in large part to my having as my avatar a picture of Katya Kipping, who's a German politician, and apparently not all that well known outside of Germany. This one other poster informed me that he had thought that it was a picture of me.

Asperger's Syndrome is in 5 times as many males as females. That is why people assume maleness here. We don't all check the profiles of users to see the gender.

The av you had before suggested male. The one you have now suggests female. On the other forums I'm on there's a male and female designator emblem. But sometimes someone doesn't select a gender and I have no idea if they are a boy or girl, unless their user name gives it away. There's a mod on one forum who doesn't have gender specified, the user name doesn't give anything away and he/she keeps switching between male and female avatars, so I have no idea what that person's gender is.

I wish my profile wouldn't say anything. When I created an account here, I was unpleasantly surprised to see that I had to pick a gender. After all, many people on the autism spectrum have a non-binary gender identity and shouldn't be forced to misidentify themselves. There is enough societal pressure to conform to the binary gender system as it is. And with a site that seeks to force its users into binary boxes, I'm not even sure if it's asking for gender or sex, or some misguided conflation of the two (or three, considering that gender identity and social gender expression can be two different things).

I'm not here to find somebody to mate with, which is why I consider my sex — my internal plumbing and the contents of my underwear — to be a very private matter. The same goes for my gender, which I'm not even sure I have. Aside from the privacy aspect, I wish that people could judge my comments on their own merit, without filtering them through a lens of gender bias or perceived utility potential. To me, gender checkboxes feel as invasive as being forced to identify my sexual orientation. This might be a useful feature on dating sites and other dedicated mating grounds, but I really wish it would vanish from social media sites and forums. Especially forums that cater to a decidedly neurodiverse audience. At the very least, there should be a third option such as "it's complicated", "I'd rather not say", or simply "nunya".

As far as I have experienced, in forums there is usually still a more balanced ratio about the gender. I think it might be, because of woman maybe more easy about accepting to have problems or accept help, or maybe communication is easier for them. Cant really say. Can only say from in experience in german autist and Asperger forums, that it was always quiet balanced.