I have to ask: Do you think it's weird if a male author have female characters in his books? If not, why is this different?
I'm late to the party, but I think there's a big fundamental difference in RPing and writing. Although, this distinction may break down a little bit in PbP rather than face-to-face games.
An author has essentially complete control over the narrative. And, crucially, is not depending on the responses of others. Also, you RP for several hours on end, so anything that is additional effort in a broad and subtle way is going to be both difficult and unlikely to be sustained over that period.
Generally, I'm against any sort of RPG tyranny. In a face to face game I'd probably say no cross-gendering for reasons that have already been stated: it would be very difficulty to pull off and my previous experiences have been disasters. The last time it happened was in a terribad Star Wars game, and the male player playing a female character was pretty awful in a host of ways. He mostly wanted to play his own game about being a pan-galactic pop star, while the rest of us were, shockingly, into shooting TIE Fighters or something. It didn't help that the genre of music his character practiced was, and I swear to you I am not making this up,
jizzAlso, it'd be weird for us for another reason. My gaming groups are either about 50/50 genderwise or 100% male. Either way it'd be weird for someone to play a crossgender character.
In PbP I don't think I'd "ban" it per se. I might ask why someone wants to play a crossgender character, although even then probably not. One of the strengths of PbP is that you are more anonymous and have more time to deliberate about your character's actions (I assume ... I don't play PbP). So, I can't even imagine bringing it up. I'd say you're well rid of that game, especially b/c the internet is a big place.
