I used to not reveal my gender either, but there’s a risk that by doing that we perpetuate some idea that female gamers are a rare and tiny subset of the gaming population, because we all remain so invisible. In WoW specifically, the female population is very high, so for us to not claim being female could be doing ourselves a disfavour. I prefer being called by the pronoun I identify with IRL, why shouldn’t I do the same in a game? Asking for the correct pronoun shouldn’t be a big deal, and yet it feels like doing that is pointing it out as special, when it should in fact just be about asking for the right pronoun.

Since we both play on a roleplay realm, there’s a principle I try and go by as a thumb rule. In many ways, it makes all of that stuff easier. And that is to go by the character gender(/name), (unless you already know someone’s gender and how they identify). It means you’ll get like 99% of female players right and, I forgot, but I think it’s like 50% of the guys right, but I’m quite convinced they are not met with a “Oh my god, he’s just trying to pull attention to himself for being a gamer-boy”. At least no assumptions were made about who people are behind their characters, and it’s more true to the spirit of a roleplay realm, I think.