How can I get people to remember my character's gender?

Question

I really enjoy playing male characters and I'm currently playing a really fun Tabaxi lad! Unfortunately, a lot of my party members (in character) still refer to my character as she/her often. I have a high pitched voice and can't make it super deep- which is fine, but it makes it hard to pass as "masculine". Because of this entire immersive moments are interrupted by my DM yelling "HE" to correct players, and my DM especially has gotten extremely fed up at this point with my players inability to remember. I've tried to talk in a deeper voice as much as possible and gently correct people but I don't want to keep interrupting session with the corrections, it takes everyone out of the game and we've had entire moments of players dramatically collapsing in frustration for how long this has been going on now.

Are there any good strategies of helping players remember my character's gender that won't take them out of the session?

Answer 1

Generally this "problem" tends to appear at the start of the game, where all the characters are new. My fix was to always refer to characters by their names, not pronouns. Once characters are well established, this ceases to be a problem.

So, as a GM, instead of saying:

What do you do?

I say:

What does Fred do?

This works for the player as well as the GM, so instead of saying "I do X", go with "Fred is doing X".

This tends to reinforce the character's gender with the additional benefit of getting the name out there.

As an extreme, I did write a card with "Alice is a GIRL!" when someone kept getting it wrong. The silliness of it made short work of the error.

Answer 2

Try describing your actions in third person if that's a possibility. That'll help remind them that your character is a male without breaking immersion. Once in a while I'll try to describe the acts in third person and then act them out.

For example, on the last one we're playing, Chutulu, mid 20s and I play a female PD. Usually I'll just stay my actions normally but once in a while I'll describe my actions in third person, so, instead of:

DM: What do you do?
I casually lean back against the wall and give a menacing glance to the guy
- What, exactly, do you mean by that sir?

I'll change it to:

DM: What do you do?
Veronica casually leans back against the wall and gives a menacing glance to the guy
- What, exactly, do you mean by that sir?

This doesn't break the flow and doesn't really change much but gently reminds other players I'm playing a woman. Then, whenever they forget (and that doesn't happen a lot on my case) I just ignore it and make a mental note to use that style again whenever I can. That will involve telling your DM to also ignore it and start using those clues together. Unless your setting is one where gender actually makes a difference and you're trying to play it out like that (for example on the 20s the fact that my character is a woman should make a difference in how she's treated and so on but we pretend women were treated equally and gloss over the fact they were not), I'd just gloss over the mistakes on gender and keep repeating the name of my character until people gets a hold to it.

It makes a lot of difference if you say it on that style, just putting a name in front reminds everyone who you are supposed to be.

Disclaimer: To be honest, I've played several female characters in the past and I've never encountered that particular problem often enough to be relevant (i.e. other players remembered my character was female after the first session).

Answer 3

One way is to encourage the table to use name cards -- that also helps everyone remember character names (a problem I have in the campaign I'm in now -- I remember my partner's character name, but not those of our cleric or ranger).

If you have a card in front of you with the name "Robert" on it, folks are more likely to remember your character is male. Beyond that, you could also include a portrait, either drawn (if you or someone at the table can draw) or obtained from some other source and printed onto the card.

This avoids the immersion-breaking loss of first person for describing your character's actions, while keeping the information about character gender front and center where everyone at the table can see it. Such cards can also be a GM aid, as they can display things like armor class, passive notice score, and saving throw values.

I've supplied printed tents for players when using pre-gen characters for a one-shot, and it did help in keeping track of which player was playing the (female) head professor, vs. the others with male characters...

Answer 4

You say you can't bring you voice down. That's fine, you don't want to strain your voice anyway.

Have you considered wearing a large, bushy (and very obviously fake) beard/goatee to the table? It would probably help people remember your character's gender, since they would see it every time they looked at you, and getting a few laughs in would also help to ease tensions about the whole debacle.

The other answers are all good, too. Upvotes all around. But personally, I try not to pass up the opportunity for a good visual cue.

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I was asked for an example of something similar I did myself, so here we go. Now, this wasn't actually D&D, mind you, and not specifically regarding the issue of gender differentiation, but it's along the same lines of reminding the players who this character is without constantly having to remind them of details that are not inherently obvious by looking at me as a player (or GM, in this case):

I was running a game of Wraith: the Oblivion where I had one NPC who was particularly relevant to the plot. He knew a lot about plot-relevant things and had a fair bit of power at his fingertips, but he was also very nerdy and nervous socially - not the sort of character I wanted the players to take too seriously in conversation, otherwise they might advance through the story faster than I wanted them to.

So, I got a pair of cheap plastic glasses from the dollar store (some ridiculous shade of neon green if I recall), broke them in half along the bridge and wrapped it up with masking tape. I popped out the lenses too. Every time the players went to see this character, I would put on the glasses and start wringing my hands and making "nerd noises" while he spoke. The glasses kept slipping off my nose, too, because of the weakened bridge, which led to me constantly pushing them up - which not only completed the character for them, but also helped me stay in character, too.

It worked beautifully to set the atmosphere, it made the players laugh, and it achieved my personal GM goal of making them not take the character too seriously in role-play. It was one of the better NPCs I've ever run, if I may say so myself.

I know we all like to approach these games seriously and with respect to the rules and so on, but we're also here to have fun, and a little comic relief can go a long way to keeping everyone in line and making characters memorable as entities beyond the player who controls them at the table. In situations like this, where you want to remind the other players of a subtle detail that isn't obvious from looking at you (as a player), a good visual cue can go a long way.

If you're worried about the comedic angle derailing the game, consider something else, less funny, but equally cheap to obtain. The fake beard is what I would go with in this situation, but you do you. Just something physical and visual that the others will see and remind them you're playing a male character.

Answer 5

You might be able to solve this in character.

Next time another player character misgenders yours, make it a point to have your character call theirs out. Make a big scene out of it; act annoyed. Have your tabaxi tell them he has no trouble telling human (or elf, dwarf, etc.) males from human females, and he doesn't understand why they have so much trouble telling tabaxi apart. He knew their eyesight was bad, but he didn't think it was that bad. Maybe even have him count out the other characters identifying each's gender. You want the other players to remember the event when they think of your character, so make it a big deal.