This may sound blunt, but I'm actually trying to be helpful: I'm sorry in advance, but this thread, or any thread purportedly trying to change (or, in your case, I guess, to "understand in a hoping-you-will change kind of way") the nature of anonymous internet commentary, is an exercise that is futile at best, blatant attention-whoring at worst. I'm not judging which you're trying to do; merely commenting on the nature of this kind of thread. Especially because the thread that supposedly prompted you to write this was deleted and its creator banned for violating the CoC. Clearly, that thread crossed the line of appropriateness, so why bother making another thread to bring even more attention to it? Regardless, though, it has nothing to do with you being female. It has to do with you revealing personal information about yourself in a mostly anonymous gamer forum. When everyone else (or mostly everyone else, or even a substantial number of everyone else) is anonymous, if you're going to step outside that protection of anonymity and post pictures of yourself, people will comment on your appearance. Your primary concern is not applicable only to girls; it could be applied to any kind of person at all. You want proof? I go to PAX every year. Numerous pictures of me show up on this website every year. As a result, we see topics like [url=http://halo.bungie.net/forums/posts.aspx?postID=46170272]this[/url] and [url=http://www.bungie.net/7_Foman-is-a-dick/en-us/Forum/Post?id=46470581&path=1]this[/url] and alternate accounts like [url=http://www.bungie.net/7_foman-iz-blaq/en-us/view/profile/index#!page=index&mid=612767]this[/url], [url=http://www.bungie.net/7_fomans-anlgger/en-us/view/profile/index#!page=index&mid=758027]this[/url], and [url=http://www.bungie.net/7_foman-is-a-nig/en-us/view/profile/index#!page=index&mid=3681243]this[/url]. I could easily make a topic exactly like the one you made, only replacing gender issues with race issues. But it would change nothing. So instead, I sigh, roll my eyes, and move on. Believe it or not, there are people on this site of every gender, race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, weight, height, and everything else you can think of. There are girls here who you'd never know are girls; the only reason I even know a FEW of them is from playing Halo on their teams or posts in private groups/messages. These people don't have to put up with any of the flak that you do, and it's because they choose not to reveal themselves to a group of anonymous gamers any more than the anonymous users who post their cruel taunts. You can't make it stop, and the only reason why this kind of thing happens is the brutality of the ability for people to make instantaneous, anonymous judgments here based solely on grossly overgeneralized stereotypes and thoughts that they would never even put into words in any other setting. Yes it's cruel. But whatever it is, it's not it's not only for females. Look at any picture thread here and see what I mean. If you want to avoid it being applied to you, start a new account or change your name to something neutral and gamer-related on this account and remain anonymous. Remaining anonymous along with everyone else truly is the best, if not only, solution to this problem.