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I have also been thinking, and I certainly don't throw this out there to muddy the waters or stir any controversy (so apologies if somehow it inadvertently does that), that there might be some generational differences at play here as well.
My impression during the years I have been active here is that I am probably fairly typical of the demographic most represented in this forum- or at least of those who are very active participants and posters. In other words, male and middle-aged. (Well, okay, at 55 I am probably more like late-middle-aged headed towards old, but that also I think is not unusual in this group.) When I visit the OOTP forums on reddit I get the distinct impression the average age of the gamers communicating there may be a bit lower.
So I do find myself sometimes wondering how representative this grouping of OOTP gamers, the ones active on this official forum, really are of OOTP gamers (and certainly of potential OOTP gamers) as a whole? I don't pretend to know the answer to that question. I would suggest that we are probably the core gamers and so in that sense our opinions might carry a bit more weight, and perhaps even should. But my instincts tell me that we probably aren't quite as representative of the average (whatever that means) OOTP gamer as we might wish to believe.
And my understanding of societal attitudes towards things like gender roles and gender identity tells me that a younger demographic is also, on the whole, a demographic group less tied to traditional norms and values in this (and not only this) area of human culture.
I am taking no stand in this post on whose norms and values are correct (or indeed regarding whether there is any such thing as correct in these matters) but merely wish to indicate that any level of support in this thread for the ideas introduced by the OP here may not be indicative of the level of overall support that might be out there.
And yes, I will be a bit less equivocal and state that I believe that any level of support shown here is probably an understatement of the level of support that a more expansive and less homogenous group of OOTP gamers or potential gamers would give for these concepts. (In my personal experience working with young people my sense isn't even necessarily that they would be more vociferous in their support of expanding gender in the game, but rather that they mostly wouldn't get why anyone would even think it was a big deal or a source of controversy.)
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