[Quiet Man Cometh]

I switch between genders for my avatar, who is male right now but was previously female, and I started with a male avatar here though I am female. Really for me it depends on the perception I have of my avatar at the moment, whether it is a reflection of myself or it's own entity. Sometimes my avatar is me, and it's female then, other times my avatar is a character, or just an idea which I have in my head, so it can be either.

I do usually look at avatars to get and idea of the gender of a person, but I know that it's not always accurate. As long as the individual doesn't fuss if I get it wrong, I don't worry about it. I'm more concerned about being embarrassed or accidentally offending someone if I get their gender wrong and they turn out to be sensitive about it.

One of the things that annoys me a little about speaking with someone where you don't know their gender is that there isn't a proper way in the English language to do it. "They" isn't really accurate though it's what I use most of them time, and "it" is just insensitive.