Linden Lab! Please do NOT ever implement any kind of gender verification in SL!

Linden Lab! Please do NOT ever implement any kind of gender verification in the server code or Profiles in Second Life!

I'm reacting here to "Robin & Daniel Linden Answer Age Verification Questions" at http://forums.secondcitizen.com/showthread.php?t=12397 (thread not safe for work due to an image), starting about halfway down when Eric Reuters asked, "will linden be offering gender verification as well now that is has the data?"

I welcome feedback and comments. I realize I'm looking well into the future on this, but it would be too late to wait until the feature has been announced. Not everything some residents may wish should be built into the server code. Code is the law of a place.

Gender verification in the server code or Profiles would be very destructive to the social fabric of Second Life. It has been pointed out that it would be bad for TG/TS people, but it would also be bad for women in general, who will be griefed if they refuse it and stalked if they accept it.

I'm worried about three things: the first two are the newbie experience, and everyday socializing. Gender verification could ruin both of those for verified women. It does so by making it easy for sexual harassment to find its preferred targets. The third thing I worry about is the risk of stalking when RL gender is known. It shows those who would stalk who their preferred targets are, and makes it that much easier to guess who is controlling an avatar.

In short, not being provably male or female gets me a lot of protection from jerks and worse.

I'm assuming a flag for gender would sort for M, F and not specified, which is anyone who doesn't check the box. The largest number of people who will not check the box will probably be born women, not TS (who do not generally identify themselves as neither, but rather as the gender to which they are transitioning). So discriminating against those who will not check the box works out to being a ban on women who won't declare themselves. Women who do not wish to verify gender for reasons of safety or privacy will be constantly hounded to justify their decision, or rebuked for being a male pretending to be female, or accused of having slack morals (I have already seen all three in the blogosphere). There is no such thing as voluntarily opting out of gender hierarchy.

Where all this becomes a problem for TS people specifically is that it could be difficult for someone in transition to get verifying documents at all in some cases (this was brought up recently in the forum), or when someone starts discriminating against avatars whose appearance doesn't match the verified gender (because the verifying document doesn't match the resident's chosen gender).

Requiring residents to declare a gender would be a disaster for women individually and would ruin the social atmosphere in SL. Turning the place into a meat market dating club would just drive many women away. This has happened in other online social venues already and their experience should serve as a cautionary tale. The only reason the party is still on in Second Life is that the neanderthals aren't sure who is female. The level of crudeness aimed at verifiable women in other online environments guarantees they will be a small minority in many. Voice also brings some of these dangers, but a Profile flag can be checked by anyone, while one can choose to whom to speak.

In addition, gender verification facilitates discrimination against gay and bisexual people. How hard would it be to write a script that sorted gender verified people by sex or by whether or not they came in opposite sex couplets?

Those who need to be really certain of the gender of the person they are dating already have plenty of ways to do that, none of which need to be in the code. There is very little legitimate business reason to require someone to verify gender specifically, with the exception of marketing, but I am not paying Premium to have sexist marketing forced on me without my opt-in.

Lessig is right to say that code is the law of a place. We don't need a law that can be used to make caste out of gender.

Thanks for hearing me out.

Brenda Archer
Bisexuals in Second Life

I've also posted this to feature request at jira at https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-731. I am grateful for any votes or comments in support! Thank you!

If you haven't used jira before, you can log in first at http://jira.secondlife.com and then you'll be able to go right to the issue URL.

Theres no need for it. If you decide to get yourself into an online dating situation and find out that your significant other isnt the gender you thought they were. OOOPS! Ya take your chances in a text based environment. If it makes a difference to you, and you require verification, call em on the phone. During that sequence in the transcript you linked to, Phil Linden said: "It is important to note that privacy, in general, is clearly a big part of SL." So, doubt its gonna happen.

Oh wow - totally never should have gender verification in a game. SL is one of the rare games that I actually play an avatar of my true gender. So it wouldn't be a big deal - but its a horrid precedent. And just leads me to think LL would just try to charge people for some kind of weird dating service in the future - cause they seem to be all about the Lindens nowadays.

Not only is it ridiculous, but it is demeaning and dangerous. Women have a hard enough time in game worlds playing female or male characters. Forcing them to identify just screams trouble - stalking - harrassment - etc.

Then there are the Trans folks, the bisexuals who like to play different sex characters, the gay folks who would rather just play the opposite sex than have to play a "gay" character. That's basically a screaming way to discriminate against GLBT players.

Games need to go MORE toward distancing folks from reality - LESS towards connecting your real life with your game life. (Shudder)

I can see pros and cons to gender verification.

I think there would be a lot of people who WOULD like gender verification in Second Life.

It certainly would remove one of the concerns over voice chat isolation.

Of course if it was an optional thing - it would still allow you to avoid the "pick up lines" by not displaying gender.

Anyonwe who didnt display it would be assumed by most to be the opposite gender of their Av, of course.

I personally have been hurt by gender pretenders who lied to me - however I blame the two of them - not the system.

One question though - I dont even know if a script can tell if your AV is male or female? Maybe one of the scripter types know. I seem to remember AV gender check ability as a Feature suggestion.



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Thinking on this it might be nice if there was a different verification informaton display than the one they are planning.

You wouldnt necessarily want everyone seeing your verified information but you might want some people to see it.

Maybe a revised calling card which acctually contained verified information that expires after 24 hours or whatever.

For example I hand out my verified Info card:
It contains Gender, Age, Country and State I live in

That way I could pass out my verified info - while I wasnt actively giving it to every weirdo I came across.

I'm not sure how they could do it any other way than that. Disclosure of full real life name is one of the items on the list to opt-in to and I can see a lot of problems if that was available to just anyone.

Maybe a "Can see my verified details" checkbox on the friendslist, along with the current "Show on the map" and others. Or a permission request each time sometime wants to see them again. Both would accomplish what LL wants them to do, but the "by permission only" should hopefully let everyone know that seeing RL information is a privilege and not a right.

Not that I care at all about bringing RL into SL in the first place, but they're probably dead set on it already, so the best thing would be to lower the impact. A mere "opt-in" won't do to keep suspicions from running rampant.

The logic is simple.

Age veriification is required as a legal requirement for sites with adult content. To be under 18 in Sl is against TOS and in many countries viewing pornographic content is illegal for minors.

Gender verification? No real point - unless being a female is illegal.


Of course a Linden lawyer could argue that not answering the gender question accurately on the registration is against TOS. But a Human Rights lawyer could argue that the gender question should be optional.

Actually so should te age question. The only age question required is are you over 18, 21 or what ever.

Good thread!

it is? i know plenty of gay men in SL but know of none who play women. i do OTOH know quite a few straight guys who play women in game, including one or two forum regulars.

it's bad enough having your SL name dragged through the mud when some nutjob who paid the equivalent of 10 cents for an item decides you ruined their entire life. if unique identity is so important (and i can understand this in situations where alts game certain systems) i don't see why a main account and its alts can't be associated with a unique ID number.

real name, age, gender, location etc. wow! it's getting ridiculous and will probably drive people out of the game if it causes class divisions or more sinister acts. real name and rough geographical location is all I need to stalk many UK citizens in RL. is there really any good reason why anything more than 'identity verified' and 'over 18' is relevant to a game?

LOL. Well, in "gay" I was referring to gay women in specific - who frequently do play male characters and admit to it (at least to us other gals). But I do know a gay guy who plays female characters so he can flirt without discrimination.

Regardless, requiring gender verification for a video game is pretty much asking me to enjoy trying out an entirely new kind of lawsuit.

well, all us guys start out as ruth so i guess we're all closet transexuals really.
i was just googling like crazy for examples of 'gender verification', but can only find such a concept being used by The Olympic Games...which is pretty controversial in itself.

part of me wonders if this talk of name, gender & location verification is designed to deflect attention from the main issue (identity verification alone), because it really is so much more outrageous to be sharing things like that with everybody and not just Linden Lab.

voluntary or not, peer pressure often influences people to do what they're not entirely happy with just to fit in. i know of one person who spent money last Jun 6th just to get 'payment info used' listed on her account (just after the payment info stuff was added to our profiles). god forbid people think she wasn't financially contributing to the upkeep of the system.

Bleah it can work the other way round. I took out a Premium account so I could buy a bit of land to play at building on, and the first (and last) time I mentioned to anyone I had some land (because they had started telling me about the sandboxes and I wanted to save them typing all the advice for nothing) they started getting all sniffy about it as if I was a snob or something.

I thought this was meant to be a game or something? I wasn't prepared for just how seriously people live their second lives.

Im' a rl male.. I play a female character as part of my sl character. She has had sex with women, men, and shemales..

In rl I am straight, if these people ask, and before anything gets serious, I have made sure they know I am a rl male. This is roleplay to me, in the general scope of SL and closer in the combat system rpgs. I will say this: when I get irritated I get irritated, but sex? I may as well be writing a graphic novel or erotic story. If I want sex for enjoyments sake rather than rp, I go to my rl fiance.

While I am open about my rl gender..many are not. Gender verification would ruin many's experiences.. I know of 3 personally, and even though I pretty much feel no sympathy for one of them, I would never leak the information. I also don't use voice..

I used to have the fact I was a rl male on my profile at one point. Kudos for honesty until the stalking and harrassment became too much even when I asked why they weren't playing a human avatar if they were so big on playign what you are..

These people who play opposite genders have their reasons. Some get a kick out of it, others its their expression. SL should be free of harassment for them.

Why would you need to? While there may still be countries out there where women don't have equal rights, I'm not sure LL is going to bow to those laws as it is still primarily governed by US law.
Therefore there's no legal reason to do so.

Community-wise, you can't seek out gender verification without also doing species verification to determine whether or not I am in fact a yellow fox

There really are some paranoid, petty and vindictive people populating SL I guess, that this is even an issue. All the "Your World, Your Imagination" talk, the ability be what your dreams may be, to just have fun. Is it the load of bullshit it appears to increasingly be? It seems everyday something else comes up that wants to make SL just a Carbon Copy of RL. If your SL relationship gets to a personal enough level where you need assurances, that can be done between the parties involved. In world I've met women playing men, men playing women, humans playing animals, social introverts becoming social butterflies, disabled people living an unfettered life(perhaps they should list their handicaps in their profiles in the name of "truthfullness". I'm sure at lot of us, male and female, when creating our avatars, have left off some of our excess baggage, or changed our eye or hair color. Where will the witchhunt end? (And I didn't even mention those playing witches).

I think it would be the most stupid, ridiculous, useless idea they could ever come up with. What's next? Furry Verification? Gorean Verification? Griefer Verification? Age Player? Brown Hair? What a way to categorize everyone...

They already are implimenting gender verification. It's on the preview grid already.It's called "voice". It is just as voluntary as age verification.

Basically it’s stereotyping. In sociology we learn about how people stereotype others into groups based on first impressions. It is going to make SL's economy just like RL ones in the world, which personally is a very bad move. We already have discrimination and racism bad enough in rl let alone it beginning on the Internet

Personally...I feel that gender verification is MORE valid than a restrictive age/identity verification. I think it's morally repugnant and wrong to play a cross-gender without blatantly stating so in a visible part of one's profile.

Please note: I did NOT say it's morally repugnant to play a cross-gender. I DID say it's morally repugnant to do so without revealing such to the public at large through an easily accessable means.

This has been debated in the past with similar unrest generated by the community.

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I did so.. and for it I was shunned insulted and in a certain Rp sim at times, they would come up with any reason to attack and 'kill' my character. All because I was some kind of 'cybertranny.' It didn't stop at the rp sims..I was greifed because of it. I could take it, but there are alot who can't.

I can see why people hide it, I've gone through it..because there are people who do not stop at that border you put up, accepting a cross gender player. They keep going and think its wrong to play that..

I've even helped women play men. Do you also want verification that a german sheperd furry is really a human? Or a robot is really a human? Thats the equivalent. If anything its a larger stretch to play a different specie than gender.

There is also the camp that says if they want everyone to say if they are male or female rl..they are trolling for a rl relationship.

*shrugs* you are entiled to your opinions.

Is Wren a girls name or a boys name? I like to play a character that doesn't give away my RL sex, it's flattering when people have to ask.

On the internet nobody knows you're a dog... unless you use voice chat

It's none of your business whether I am RL female or male or not, and it's not morally repugnant for me to keep it a secret from you.

I am NOT in SL to get into a relationship with you, or even try to do so.

IT IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

What's morally repugnant is your insistence I reveal facts about my RL to strangers, putting my RL safety at greater risk, and your willingness to impugn my character if I refuse. This is a primary reason I oppose gender verication in SL, as those who refuse it for safety reasons will not be able to preserve their reputation, but will be assumed - by total strangers - to have no morals.

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Thank you, and well said. If LL confines itself to verifying only what is legally necessary, they are safer anyway, and third party solutions that are TRULY optional can cover everything else.

Hmmm i wonder why its necessary you want people to reveal such to the public at large.

I can definitely see revealing it to all freinds/potential romantic/sexual partners - sure.

But why the public at large? - just curious.