You can, of course, dismiss me as bound up in the same defensiveness as all those men you describe thus. Or you can look at their responses and think “what about my manner caused people to react like this to what I wrote? How can I behave that will provoke the same discussion as others, but without the mockery that I produced from my audience? What am I doing wrong that means that my points are dismissed and I fail to help others address what I see as important?”

Does accusing dozens of others of something about their character and lifestyle choices on the basis of fairly flimsy evidence, whether by a startling coincidence it happens to be true of them all or not, help you to communicate with others?

I apologise if this seems aggressive: it’s really not supposed to. And I know that a public forum isn’t the best place to post this sort of thing: most people will just do what you describe others as doing in the same situation: dismiss it. But if you go around saying about everyone who disagrees with you “I don’t need to say a word, you’re all a bunch of closet transvestites and are scared to admit it”, you’ll end up getting the same version of /rolleyes every time, and that would be a terrible waste.

After all, you’re surely the last person one would expect to use loaded and judgemental language like “guilty conscience” on the subject, reinforcing stereotypes.

Anyway, the “you’re all homophobes” response - ad hominem if ever there was a case of it - doesn’t move your case on at all. What if you were wrong? It could happen, you know?

I didn’t see a any responses on there that were flaming or rude, although quite a few were teasing you, like the one you mention pointing out that the post sat a touch awkwardly with the traditional “feel” of the Terra Novan community that you’ve joined.

Some of the comments in Terra Nova were really interesting and on point, also. The guy saying he had unwillingly adjusted to a more feminine associated behavior just because he had taken a female avatar is one of those case where you long for actual hard data.

In the end don’t worry for ego bashing I guess.

I’m very interested in transgender issues and have pre-op transgender (M/F and F/M) avatar options in all my sex game designs to give acknowledgement to the community of people living with bodies/appearances in conflict with traditional male/female body images and roles. The fact that virtual worlds allow people to live as other genders in a community with true privacy and true transformation (gender constructed indepently of all phsyical and social history the person has) opens doors to all sorts of issues… some of which probably beg discussion from sexologists, mental health workers, and transgendered people themselves (rather than game developers and the VR world analysts alone).

Transvestitism may not have been the optimum term but reintroducing a topic like this that still has much to be explored is a good idea. Particularly where females play male characters as well. These are not “solved” issues with a broad consensus of understanding. If TN is exhausted on the topic, that’s the poverty of their interest in the matter talking- not the fault of the subject matter. It’s interesting stuff.