Why Do Men Tend to Play as Females in Games? (ME: Why not?)
I always make a male and female character and give them the same name from my other games if possible (I gave them personality/backstories in my head, dont ask). And sometimes I make multiple characters from different classes, species, races, skin colors etc. and if I feel creative, their back story/bio. Helps if one is a creative person that likes to write stories.
One exception: If I'm playing as a dwarf, he has to be male and have a great beard. Otherwise, what's the point? Unless lady dwarfs have beards in this setting, then I'm doing that.
My favorite variant of this is that if you pick a dwarf in the Lord of the Rings MMO, there's no gender option, since they all have beards and look the same