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Notes -
I'm reminded of Digimon World 3, where the characters are briefly, at the start of the game, shown in the real world, before going to play the Digimon Online game (which lasts most of the rest of the game). As part of this they have to create accounts and avatars; Teddy stays as Teddy, Junior the protagonist sets his account name to whatever name you choose (and the game can't really draw attention to this because you COULD just leave it as Junior) and Ivy decides to rename herself Kail. After a brief discussion about it, she clarifies that she just felt like it, and the rest of the game goes on and everyone calls her Kail because that's her name in this world.
Why couldn't you do something like that? A character's cyberspace self is the opposite gender, and their only explanation for it is "this is just what I wanted to make" and then nobody ever brings it up again. iirc this happened by force in the most recent remake of Jumanji? Making it voluntary would signal better. You don't even really have to mention the character's meatspace name or confirm their meatspace sex, just make them look a touch ambiguous.
I actually think that's clever and I like that. And then of course nobody really brings it up, it's just "hey, yeah, go for it."
(One of the things that was in my notes for that post that didn't make it in was my then-4-year-old daughter deciding she wanted to play Monster Hunter World, and in character creation, decided to make a middle-aged black man, which I admit I thought was kind of funny. But I also don't think it meant anything, she just thought he looked cool, which, in fairness, he did. So, hey, go for it kid, have fun.)
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