While I have a fair amount of female avatars, but I primarily use male ones on the grounds of 'Not wanting to be oggled by heterosexual men old enough to be my dad'. Needless to say, my mum was less than pleased when she disvcovered this.

Mostly averted with this male troper, who usually tries to avoid using female avatars, opting instead to use a {{Bishounen}} avatar. Exceptions include avatars of the "disgustingly adorable" variety and Wriggle "I'm not a boy!" Nightbug.

This transgendered (male-to-female) troper isn't sure if she qualifies. Though I suppose I do, since I've played both male and female characters. Generally prefer female ones, but the male Swordsman in RagnarokOnline struck me as so darn cute...

This female troper is kinda all over the map on this; her characters as a group are about two thirds female and one third male (I aim for 50/50, but I seem to come up with a disproportionate number of ideas for female characters), writing, RP, and video gaming alike. I usually just use avatars representing my online personae (I have two and both are female), although there are exceptions; I also have a stock avatar that represents a male character of mine, which is the one I use on the forums here. I also cosplay characters of both sexes.

This, also female, troper likes to mix it up, too. I aim for a 50/50 split in my text-based role playing, and I think I currently have 4 male characters and 4 female. (The variances come in how often I use them. I tend to use the female ones more often, but that's mostly because they're more involved in the setting I play the most.) But I also have a female character for [=DnD=] (which I haven't used yet), and prefer to play female characters when given the choice in video games. (Although I usually play a male character later, too.)

This Troper has played as Aile in MegaManZX before he knew the advantages, and doesn't really care.

This Troper not only played several female characters (and some male characters, all at once) in an online RP chat, he successfully convinced most other players there that one of them belonged to a woman IRL, without initially trying to do so. (After people became convinced without his intent, it was problematic to suddenly reveal it.) It may have helped that one of his other female characters, known to be played by a male, had almost no stereotypical female traits, but surely the degree of kinky fanservice should've tipped off someone.

This female troper aims for a 50/50 split with all of her characters too, except on sites where she doesn't like one gender's avatar base and instead turns an avatar of the opposite gender into a WholesomeCrossdresser (In particular, she does this a lot on GaiaOnline where she finds the male avatars too bulky). Her main account on Gaia has a female avatar, but is a convincing enough {{Bifauxnen}} that only people who are familiar with the poses the male and female avatars have can tell that the avatar is a girl. So not only does she crossplay online, she makes some of her avatars crossplay too. This tends to confuse people a lot.

This Troper has crossplayed (a male choosing the female avatar) in every main-series Pokemon RPG ever since seeing a warning in the manual for Sapphire version: "Please choose the player of your gender." Sure, no problem.

This Male Troper has crossplayed both in an MMORPG and in tabletop gaming. He somehow finds it easier to get into a female mindset when roleplaying.

This male troper crossplays a lot in [=RPGs=]. It all depends on what gender works better for my character concept.

Bingham}} This male troper is the exact same way, and has played a number of female roles in PlayByPostGames in addition to male roles, as well as a number of female characters in [=MMORPGs=] as well.

AOL. To the point where when I was playing a female rape victim, I got messages from several players who were real-life survivors asking if it was biographical and did I need to talk.

This female Troper tends towards male characters in text-based RP (for whatever reason she finds male characters easier to play) but otherwise has no preference; her (male) friend prefers female avatars for the following reason: "If I'm going to stare at someone else's ass for hours on end, it may as well a ''pretty'' ass".

This troper has seen this excuse used by male crossplayers in FinalFantasy11 as well; "I play as a Mithra because I don't want to be looking at manbutt all day".

This male troper really finds no qualms with playing as either gender in WoW, though often finds himself using a more female text tone when speaking, and using more emotes.

This Troper plays both male and female characters on ''WorldOfWarcraft'' and other [=MMORPGs=]. He has actually been mistaken for female on his female Blood Elf Hunter, so he states that he is male in his [=RP=] description.

This troper is a white male who is so thin, I'm literally underweight (not by much, though). My Xbox Live avatar is an obese black woman. The reason for this is that a friend was over and noticed that I had yet to make myself an avatar; since I don't care about avatars, I never bothered to change it.

This troper's male friend crossplays in Runescape. We had a good laugh about it when I dueled him.

This male troper always plays the female character in Pokemon. This leads every person he battles to ask "why did you play the girl?" He has no real explanation as to why. Probably if he played more games with a female option, he would choose that one.

This troper has no particular preference for playing as a male or female. But when playing an online game, he opts to play as black women, because very few other players do.

This troper plays female characters for two reasons, one she is a MTF, two she is a lesbian, so, sort of adverted, but played straight to the one friend who guessed my, status, quoting the, "look at a pretty ass" bit.

I (a male) find myself at a 60/40 split between male and female avatars in gaming, both online and off. Nobody has ever questioned my decision, though.

My friends and I once decided to all make characters in an MMORPG that were the opposite of our actual genders. As the only actual girl in the group, I played the only male character, and was the only one out of my friends who did not get stalked or hit on in-game.

I have since created female characters for this same game, and found an interesting difference in the way other people interact with me depending on my gender. Playing as my stronger female melee character, I will be offered help when I don't need, or sometimes even want, it. Conversations tend to be about what I'm doing later, how pretty my armor is, and if I need someone to protect me while I do a quest. Playing as my weaker male archer, I need to explicitly ask for help when I need it, but will be left to my own devices otherwise. Conversations as a boy are about what other games I play, what type of hardware my computer has, and requests for me to help other players on their quests. I prefer the latter.

My penchant for playing female characters comes, at least partially, from being a YuriFanboy. (Though in Mass Effect, it's really more about {{Jennifer Hale}}'s voice acting.) I'd wager there's plenty of {{Yaoi Fangirl}}s who do the same. On-line, though, I stick to my real world gender. Less trouble.

This troper is another lesbian transsexual, and actually was rightfully called out on that due to ignoring this trope, and then this troper got back into the closet by saying that this trope applied straight to her. (lame pun entirely intended)

When this female troper plays as a male character in play-by-post [=RPs=], she always seems to get hit on. She can't imagine why...

This male troper tends to pick female characters over male characters in video games. Out of seven role playing (both pen & paper and text-based role playing counted) characters he's made, however, it's a fairly even split of three male and four female (including one lesbian). In KingdomOfLoathing, he always picks Female as gender upon ascension, but only because all the male class avatars are bald.

This troper usually picks female avatars because if he is going to pretend to be something he can't be in real life, he might as well go all the way.

This troper crossplays in just about every way imaginable. In MMO's, in RPG's, in test-based RP's, in chatrooms, on forums, over the phone, and in costume. He--I mean, she, has this PinkBoyBlueGirl motif with a friend of hers, making them an odd pair of ThoseTwoGuys. I often Drop Bridgets on online friends, and when I don't, I amuse myself in how different people treat me depending on my gender. ... I wish I were born a boy.

People were pretty surprised to find out I was a girl in a fanfiction forum, mostly because of my avatar, and partially because of my writing style and crude humor. Nowadays I play male characters in Play By Post Games because it separates me from the character and avoids creating an Author Avatar or Mary Sue.

This male prefer female characters in tabletop gaming mainly because I have difficulties making male characters that don't basically act like me - the gender difference makes it easier to be different. That, and I have a fondness for strong and impressive women, and play ones I can visualize. Also, I have yet to play a male character in either Neverwinter Nights, Fallout or Nethack. Think about that last one for a bit.

This troper is biologically female but identifies as male. He usually plays as girls. It's just cooler and more unexpected if you're awesome, plus he prefers female protagonists. He however opts for "canon" protagonist most of the time, so can be forced into a male at times and doesn't mind.

This male ''WorldOfWarcraft'' player has about a 1:2 ratio between female characters and male characters respectively (well, characters that he actually ''plays'',) but his main is female.

This female troper usually plays as a male character in [=MMOs=], mainly because she usually dislikes the choices given to her if she chooses to be female. This has led to several... odd events where she once played wingman for one of her party members, and was awkwardly hit on by a female character for being nice to him/her.

This Tropette is part of a {{Peanuts}} roleplay on Fanfiction.net, where she plays three characters: Peppermint Patty, Peggy Jean, and Thibault.

This troper went to a movie theater where they had a special PulpFiction "quote-along", where people are allowed to say lines from the movie as they appear. Two women were cosplaying as Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega. There was a dance contest and they managed to imitate the dance scene from the movie pretty well.

@/FarseerLolotea and quite a few of her guildies have been known to cross-play. It's about the shoulders, you know...

This male troper crossplays about half the time, usually because I want something nice to look at while playing. If there's a significant difference between male and female avatars in terms of gameplay I'll pick the one that works the best with my style.

This male troper crossplays in various roleplays on forums - officially, to even out the male to female characters ratio. However, he doesn't like being male in real life. He also plays as a male character in RuneScape, apparently for honour purposes. The name Minnakht, which he uses nearly everywhere, is cut off after the a by many people, and they mistake him for a girl when calling him Minna. It's really nice, though.