Are you a boy? Or a girl?

[Honest]

you honestly have no idea how hyped I am that I just used a Pokemon line as a thread title

The majority of us here identify as either male or female. In real life, it's usually rather simple to figure such things out, but over the internet, it's a completely different story, considering you can't actually see the person in question. Do you look at people on PC and automatically assume them to be a certain gender, or do you try to find out first before using pronouns?

 

[Guardian]

I rarely use pronouns as HE or SHE on this forum. But if I need to determine if its a guy or girl, I look at the picture and the name.
Also I look at the Gender thing on the right side, but it kinda gets me confused cos there are people who I am sure are girls but end up with a male sign and vice versa.

But yeah, anyway, I dont really put much thought into that.

 

[Hikamaru]

I don't usually tend to assume one's gender by their username, but I do know of certain somebodies I see here who genderbend due to a love towards certain female characters (Yukari Yakumo and Leijon, I'm looking at you) while sometimes I have a weird tendency to use avatars/sigs that look male though I sometimes balance it out with females because well, female users with "cute" themes is not an uncommon sight.

Given I'm someone who posts in The Welcome Lounge a lot (and therefore run into loads of new guys) there have been many occasions where someone I was greeting thought I was male solely due to my avatar, and that's when I have a male-looking theme up. It took them quite a while to discover I was actually a girl, and it doesn't even help my real name doesn't look very feminine for a girl's name at all.

But most of the time I know someone's gender thanks to the gender sign in the postbit, I don't think I have ever been caught off-guard yet.

 

[Flushed]

For other places besides PC I think the gender ratios are a bit more skewed towards the male side, so I will often assume a user is a male (especially in places where you have to like click on the profile to see if they've listed their gender). Here though I don't really make assumptions, and I try to avoid using pronouns because, as mentioned, some people do genderbend. So I might form a mental image for someone, but I'll try to refer to them just by name on the off chance that certain pronouns are incorrect, unless I know for a fact what gender they are.

 

[Oryx]

I judge way more on writing style than avatar/sig.

 

[Corvus of the Black Night]

I don't really think about it honestly. Like, I really don't. I guess you could say I assume people are male until they tell me otherwise? It's really not that important to me though, and I usually don't pay attention to their gender

 

[Nah]

I generally just go by the postbit, unless I know what the person's gender really is. If I don't know and there's no gender displayed, I usually use "they". Do I care if you have your gender displayed as the opposite one? Nope.

you honestly have no idea how hyped I am that I just used a Pokemon line as a thread title

It's ok Dipu, sometimes I get a little excited when I mix video game stuff into non-VG threads

and it doesn't even help my real name doesn't look very feminine for a girl's name at all.

Wut? Nichole doesn't look masculine to me.....

I judge way more on writing style than avatar/sig.

You can really tell based on writing style? I didn't really think that there was a general "male writing style" and a general "female writing style".

 

[Madorin]

I realised that I get an image of person by his/her avatar, nickname and the things they write and how they write.
When I first met some people I've only known through the internet before I was surprised what they really looked like.
I wasn't shocked or disappointed. It was just interesting for me to see that I had made an image of them in my mind without even realising it.

It also happened the other way around. We had a meetup with some Forum members of a german forum and one of them told me that she imagined me in a whole different way because of the avatar I used there.

She imagined I had dark hair and light brown skin. Well...my natural hair color is a dark blonde (though I've got it dyed black for years now) and I'm very pale ^^

I think writing style gives you an image of how old the person might me. That's what I experienced. I can still remember this one girl, who is now one of my best friends, that I always considered to be about my age (which was 21 at this time) but she turned out to be 17. Compared to other people this age her writing stile was pretty mature and she was informed about so much things that most 17 year olds don't really care about.
In international forums it's much harder for me to get an image of a person just by his/her writing style 'cause it's not my native language and this goes for a lot of other people on international forums.
In this case my image is mostly based on nickname and avatar.

 

[Oryx]

You can really tell based on writing style? I didn't really think that there was a general "male writing style" and a general "female writing style".

It's not 100% accurate but in the grand scheme of things it's far more accurate than guessing based on themes, haha.

 

[Aisu]

I'll look at the Gender setting, and even if it's not their gender, hey, you chose it, you shouldn't mind if I call you by that gender. Otherwise, I'll use username only/no gender-specific pronouns. I don't go by username and avatar/signature because of the often misleading themes.

 

[Nathan]

An Internet sage once said "everyone on the Internet is male unless proved otherwise."
I follow him.

 

[Sydian]

I usually go with what they have listed. That's what they want to be associated as, I assume. Some people that I know beforehand might genderbend and I'll call them by their actual pronoun, but other than that, I like to stick with what people have listed. If they don't have anything listed and I don't have prior knowledge of their gender, then they're "they" until otherwise stated.

As far as assumptions without looking at the gender they've set though, it usually has to do with the theme. I noticed a lot of guys tend to not bother with themes whereas girls either have extravagant themes or a barren sig with an artsy avatar. More often I see guys with ROM hack support banners in their signatures as well, or their list of current challenges. This is all just observation, of course! If you're a girl with ROM hack banners or a guy with a beautiful theme, that's great. You do you, boo. x

Writing style is also a big thing. Again, an observation, but more males tend to have bad grammar and punctuation than girls. Usage of smilies is also more female oriented, but I don't see much of them from guys or girls nowadays it seems. Did everyone get over smilies? :P Word usage and phrasing is also a key element too. It would make more sense to quote some stuff to show what I mean, but yeah.

I hope this post doesn't come off to judgmental or anything. I just find analyzing writing styles and behavior to be pretty interesting. lol

 

[Yukari]

A number of things really. But normally I go by what gender they're listed as. of course some people genderbend which, can be confusing.

Aside from that I also consider their personality (Which was a dead giveaway with Sheep. Seriously, I didn't even need to see what gender she was listed as.) And I can tell from their theme and username.

But if I can't tell what their gender is, I usually refer to them using gender neutral pronouns.

 

[Oryx]

An Internet sage once said "everyone on the Internet is male unless proved otherwise."
I follow him.

I know it probably doesn't really matter to you because you're a guy so your tactic doesn't actually have any effect on you whatsoever, but it really upsets me when I'm mistaken for a guy. Just throwing it out there - the male as default exists for a reason, and the reason isn't nice.

Which is why I try to shake up the male as default and throw in female pronouns, and notice when a book or show or something uses female as a stand-in for 'everyone'. It's tiring to be non-default all the time, and nice to see the opposite.

 

[faf]

Like others have said, I tend to assume their gender via avi/sig. But since I like to be a perfectionist, I also tend to see what gender they are if they are listed. However, if I'm really unsure then I normally refer them to as they or if I'm not shy I'd kindly ask.
you have no idea how many times i was called a dude during my time on the internet.

 

[Treecko]

I don't usually tend to assume one's gender by their username, but I do know of certain somebodies I see here who genderbend due to a love towards certain female characters (Yukari Yakumo and Leijon, I'm looking at you) while sometimes I have a weird tendency to use avatars/sigs that look male though I sometimes balance it out with females because well, female users with "cute" themes is not an uncommon sight.

You see, You always say stuff like this , but I've never saw it. A lot of your avatars/signatures looked feminine to me. Though I really don't see how an avatar determines a person's gender in the first place.

Usually upon first meeting them, I assume their gender based on the one they list. While that method can be rather confusing at times since people do genderbend., I see it as the best way to determine gender until they state it themselves. If they don't list their gender, then I usually just used they or them unless they mention their gender. I also try not to assume gender based on their pictures or their avatars. Cause you got to remember transgendered people exist, people who are bigender exist, and people who are agender also exist, and I don't want to misgender someone out of carelessness cause they look male in a picture or have a "masculine" avatar.(And there's some people who get pretty annoyed by people who misgender them.)

 

[Hikamaru]

You see, You always say stuff like this , but I've never saw it. A lot of your avatars/signatures looked feminine to me. Though I really don't see how an avatar determines a person's gender in the first place.

Usually upon first meeting them, I assume their gender based on the one they list. While that method can be rather confusing at times since people do genderbend., I see it as the best way to determine gender until they state it themselves. If they don't list their gender, then I usually just used they or them unless they mention their gender. I also try not to assume gender based on their pictures or their avatars. Cause you got to remember transgendered people exist, people who are bigender exist, and people who are agender also exist, and I don't want to misgender someone out of carelessness cause they look male in a picture or have a "masculine" avatar.(And there's some people who get pretty annoyed by people who misgender them.)

I know about the LGBT's (although I don't come across a lot of them here) but I usually also use the "they" pronoun unless if the member is one I've known for a long time.

 

[Torchick08]

i am horrible at quessing genders usually if i think your a guy you turn out to be a girl and im like whoa O.O lol and vise versa. i try to stick to gender nutral terms but thats just cause im a closet lesbian lol habits.

 

[Lapis]

Well..Yea there has been times I have mistaken people on the internet for the wrong gender and stuffs. Usually as what others said, what gets me is their sig/avi theme. Or just something about how they post just automatically makes me think "This person is an *insert the wrong gender here*" and when you find out they are the opposite gender of what you originally thought it's like...Awks. <.<

 

[Aisu]

Writing style is also a big thing. Again, an observation, but more males tend to have bad grammar and punctuation than girls. Usage of smilies is also more female oriented, but I don't see much of them from guys or girls nowadays it seems.

I thought it was the other way around.