Man.

The new guild now knows I'm a girl. This doesn't change anything, really. I'm used to everyone assuming the person behind the char is male, because girls don't play video games at all. And I don't bother correcting people with they call me "dude" or "man" or "bro", especially if they're not somebody I interact with on a normal WoW basis. I don't see the point, they're just terms of familiarity people toss around. But in guild chat, somebody specifically referred to me as "he", and I stared at the little chat log for a few seconds. I could not decide whether to correct or just let it be. I was bemused by my real indecision about speaking up. For one, I don't want to be perceived as a player who HAS to bring up their gender at every turn. I see that in general, saw it in my old guild, will probably see it in future guilds or raids or whatever. It bugs me when a player gets referred to as the aforementioned "dude", and they have a fit: "I AM A LADY I HAVE BREASTS OKAY". So there is that (admittedly irrational) fear, since I'd just say it once.

Secondly, you just get treated differently as a girl in game. Certainly not by all players, but it happens. One in game friend of mine is constantly referred to as "sweetie" by her guild leader on runs. My old guild (whom I loved dearly, by the way. I miss them, and I keep bring them up since they make up most of my WoW experience. I've got no other examples to draw on at the moment.) ..well, my guild knew I was a "real girl", we had Vent. One of the dudes would also refer to me with pet names, help me out all the time, and would generally flirt. Did that REALLY bother me? God, no...I'm not going to call out somebody on being nice over a MMO. But I know he was nice based on my gender, which is strange. Not the end of the world, didn't make me incredibly uncomfortable, but it's weird knowing that if I were another 18-year-old boy, my experience would be just a little different. I prefer being friendly, cracking jokes, and just being another person playing the game. As a girl, you don't get the easy boy's club familiarity right away. You gotta ignore "LOL THERE'S A GIRL HERE" comments for a while before they forget. I've never experienced anything quite like this before. I've never been in the Army, or trained to be a police officer or firefighter, where the majority of your peers are men. Also, gender is usually immediately apparent in the real world, so people respond to you for who you are right off the bat. In WoW, you might talk in guild chat and run instances for months (or weeks in my case), before you figure out that hulking Tauren is not, in fact, another dude. My char is actually female, so I found my new guild's assumption that i was a boy doubly funny.


As for what happened?

me: "oh...not 'he'. she."
dude: "wow, two girls in the guild."
me: "yeah wtf. everyone knows girls don't play wow."
dude: "lol i know."

Heh.