Because of the age old debate that people should play as their own gender/sex rather than creating an archetypal character that they like.

I can't understand why people don't want to play as their own gender... Ok I can understand why guys don't, unfortunately. I just think its good to have a representation of reality in games even though its all pretend.

My largest hobby beyond gaming is reading and writing. So it's no surprise that I would like story driven and RPG type games. I generally do have the generic "Me" character that is male and does what I would do. However I also enjoy creating new characters following certain archetypes. Some are male while others are female. For instance the majority of magic using characters that I make are female, mostly because my favorite mage type characters are often the "evil sorceress". I still get the experience that I would get with my "Me" character but I also play through thinking about what my specific character would do in a situation rather than what I would do. I therefore get to have experiences and outcomes that I previously would never have seen, and I still have a connection to my character as I've molded their personality and traits off of my favorite characters from different books/stories. All in all, what I'm doing is creating a character that I would like to watch go through the story and see what happens when I mix things up. That being said I do tend to make characters that I still feel a connection with but that is more on a personality/emotional level rather than physical appearance.

Fair enough. I know your explanation doesn't speak for everyone but I like it none the less. That's a pretty cool hobby by the way. I'm just playing around with creating a short story about my character. It's been such a blast and I love the additional feel it will add to my main character while playing destiny.

That's how I originally got so much into writing. Try adding in a side character that's female, maybe a love interest or some other sort of companion. If you add enough depth to her I can guarantee that you'll feel connected and like her enough that you would probably feel you could play as her. I say that because, in reality, the only person one can ever truly understand is yourself. You literally have no other option than to put some part of yourself into her character. Physical characteristics have literally no impact upon the characters personality but you and your own views, beliefs and thought processes do. It's still not for everyone but I think more people are capable of enjoying playing as different characters than they think.