I'm sure we are all familiar with these excuses.

Chun Li is the fastest character and I prefer to hit and run. I'd rather stare at a womans ass for this long of a game then a mans ass. My newest one for deflecting the question is just to say 'because I'm gay, alright?' It usually confuses the rude ones long enough that they just drop the question.

For as long as their have been female characters as selectable options in games some men have had to prove their manhood by answering the question 'why are you playing as a girl?'. As games become more connected and more social the ability to choose the gender of your avatar has changed things so that often times in games that don't have some obvious give away like voice chat you don't even know the gender of the person you are playing the game with.

The reaction to this has been rather destructive to many people's gaming experience. Girls are often asked 'are you a real girl?' or just flocked upon due to sheer rarity in such ridiculous numbers, hit upon and insulted and harassed. Meanwhile men who use female avatars are subject to similar ridicule and also various slurs involving their sexuality.

This is largely due to the fact that many of the males playing these games have a very distorted view of the concept of femininity. They seem to have only two modes in dealing with females. Mode one is attempt to screw, mode 2 is discard and insult.

I personally find myself in a strange situation in this hilariously disgraceful mess. I (in a revelation that I'm sure will lead to plenty of harassment of my own) am one of a subset of men who has gender identity issues.

I feel that I have to explain myself to an extent. Gender confused males have had this sort of...insulting and comical stereotype built around them by daytime talk shows and misguided and confused ignorance on both sides. There are so many negative judgements around the concepts of crossdressing and betraying of gender roles in general that I personally have been holding onto this article for a half a year in deciding if I should write it anonomously or not. The perils of actually posting stuff attached to your name huh?
Still someone has to take responsibility and talk about this so why the heck not? Gaming culture in particular needs a wake up call on this issue due to the fact that rougly 70 percent of the 'humor' surrounding online games is 'huhuh. That girl ain't a real girl. It's really a fat nerd masturbating, huhuh'. I'm sure even people who consider themselves tolerant have  resorted to this joke at one point. I bet I have too. I can't remember it's such a natural part of internet culture.

To get things strait for the uniformed, not all men with gender issues parade around all day in drag trying to fool other men. They don't all describe themselves as 'a woman trapped inside a man's body' and they don't all want to get operations and live as a woman.  They don't all attempt to 'cyber' with horny men on the internet by claiming to be 'hawtchik23'. They aren't out trying to entrap men and make them gay (most gender confused individuals I know are strait, a few are bi. I've never personally met a gay one. Also why would any gay guy want anything but another accepting gay guy?) Also the ones that do fit into some of those stereotypes are still human and many are still capable of rational thought and self awareness. Many are normal responsible people who are just not exactly like the average male. I personally am not really sure where I fall in the entire situation. I just know how I understand it.

I quite simply have no disconnect between what traits I find attractive and what traits I would personally like to possess. It is a strange head space to be in, as I don't really find either gender to be without it's eye rolling faults and disadvantages. I am not a woman trapped inside a mans body or any of that. I just simply don't identify with men in the same way normal men do. I don't particularly want to conform to ANY gender identity, as both seem to be nothing but glorified and derogatory stereotypes meant to keep people from doing things modern society deems inappropriate and to keep them shopping for football jerseys and cute shoes.
I simply find the female gender identity to be the more interesting of the two personally. Given how much I complain about how misused women are in modern fiction maybe I just like rooting for the underdog. Or maybe I just hate muscles and bro-ocity due to years of being treated like crap by ignorant tough guys. Or maybe it's a chemical thing. I digress, anyway, the fact is that it's been a part of my identity for most of my life in some form or another and I can't just turn it off and ignore it because it's inconvenient to society's designs for me. 

As a result of this alternate way of thinking when I play a game where I have a choice between playing as a male or a female my first instinct is to choose female. Some guys might act like this is some form of dishonesty or some such thing. I would like to ask those guys a few questions. Do you have so much muscle you could wrestle a bear? Do you have clean and perfectly kept hair and man scaping? Do you have military training and access to super guns? Games are often times about escapism for people. They are an aspirational fantasy about things we can never be. If you are allowed to misrepresent yourself for your own amusement then anyone is. Even people you don't understand.

I recently had a conversation in one of my online games with someone who asked me why I play using female avatars  I asked them why it should matter and they responded with why it matters to them. “Because I treat girls differently from guys. I wouldn't give a girl a high five for example.” I responded “Well maybe you should just treat everyone with the same neutral amount of respect and friendliness instead of basing your reactions to everything on gender lines.” he didn't really agree but I still think it's a good point.

One of the major criticisms for males who use female avatars in games is that they are purposefully fooling men into thinking they are women. This is just a stupid assertion to begin with. Firstly women masquerade as men in online games rather often and you don't notice or care because you don't ask every guy you meet “are you a real guy”. Secondly how would you feel if someone charged up to you and asked you personal information on the Internet every time you played. Especially if you know that if you answer truthfully the average male would consider themselves 'justified' in harrassing you. When faced with those situations I usually answer based off of how much I feel like being insulted by an immature arsehole that night. So I often times will lie just to make everyone's life easier.

While I am on this subject, what benefit do you have of even ASKING if someone is a real girl or not. If you are looking for a date in an online game about the stupidest thing you can do is go up to the first female avatar and start putting on the moves. Not only is it an insult to most women to be hit on the first time you talk to them it's also statistically uncertain that you would actually be talking to a woman most of the time. Also if you are so paranoid about treating a guy like a girl maybe you should consider exactly why the hell you treat girls differently to begin with, as I imagine a lot of those differences could even be annoying to the girls you interact with.
Finally, if you notice a guy playing with a girl avatar. For god's sake don't bother to mention it. They have their reasons and their reasons are none of your damn business. Most of them aren't gender confused and the ones that are just want to not have their differences be pointed out to them every ten seconds while they are trying to enjoy a game. No one is asking you why you like guys so much that you always have to play as one in a game so you shouldn't be asking a guy why they like girls so much they want to play as one.

Of course this post is largely pointless to actually fixing the problem as asking the Internet to grow up and be respectful is a doomed proposition.