> Or maybe you try and get away from all that, go by "J. Hacker" to hide your identity... and accept that you'll have to be constantly vigilant about what you reveal to who, and what might happen if you let the wrong thing slip to one of your hacking buddies. For years.
Actually you only need to keep gender out of the equation long enough that first contact and assessment is over; once somebody has filed you under 'person I know' instead of 'wow something potentially fuckable !!1!' (no, the "thing" is not an accident), people tend to generally behave.