Androgynous Avatars Inspire Less Trust
Two researchers set out to see if mixed gender avatars would be less well received than single gender. Their findings? A person of androgynous appearance is felt to be less trustworthy than one clearly defined as belonging to one gender or another, when all other factors are eliminated.

Gender swapping on MUDs, a personal and social identity workshop
This is a well-argued response to a cross-newsgroup posting by a university student on gender-swapping in MUDS. Maybe the poster shouldn't have written the questionnaire from a biased perspective.

Contrast one of the Key Issues in Determining Both Avatar Facial Gender and Age
When it comes to an avatar face, how it is perceived by others is the most important detail. Surprisingly how the eyes process what they see and turn an androgynous face into one gender or another, or a young face into an aged one, depends to a surprisingly great deal on subtle contrast differences in a small number of facial features.

First created in 2003, Gender Inclusive Game Design: Expanding The Market deals with the ever-present problem of game and virtual-space designers assuming, incorrectly, that young males, typically 13-25 years of age, dominate the market.

Gender Swapping on the Internet
This well-rounded, researched and written paper on the effects playing different genders has on the experiences of players on virtual worlds. One of those articles that never ages.

Anachronisms, Part I: Gender Games
Throughout history, women have been oppressed, or devalued. Always, it's been men who rule the roost, and women toiling under their leash. Historical recreation is all very well, but be careful just how faithfully you recreate, or you may find yourself without a playerbase.

Large Image Display: Animatrix: The Second Renaissance: The Goddess Interface
This single still is from the widescreen version of ?The Second Renaissance?, one of the Animatrix animated shorts. Its clever because psychologically, a human of either gender tends to find it easier to listen to a female voice than a male one. The guide goddess, symbolizing absolute power, interacts with the images as well, just when a counterpoint is needed, but is not in the file.

In the modern era of VoIP and face to face communication, we are in danger of losing the power of virtual reality in a kind of mixed reality system. For whatever reason: nationality, lisp, burr, mixed gender heritage or simply being half drunk or high at the time, the market for the voice you emit to be synthetic, to be virtual is huge, preserving the integrity of the virtual world, by keeping the purely physical out.

(26/05/2009)
It is well known that people use head motion during conversation to convey a range of meanings and emotions, and that women use more active head motion when conversing with each other than men use when they talk with each other.