On declaring one's RL gender

Permit me to point you at a fascinating and informative exchange in the SL Universe forums, on whether and when to declare one's RL gender in SL.

I'll have to come back to this later.

Gender

"OMG most of the women avs in SL are males in RL."

For starters, that is not true, at least not everywhere. Almost all of the women who attend Kira and Play as Being are also female in RL, for example — and they are a third to half of the attendees at most events.

But the larger question is, why does it matter? Why do people not say "OMG did you know that almost all of the lions in SL are human in RL?"