I think what he's saying is that on an anonymous message board, there is no reason to bring gender into the conversation other than when it's explicitly relevan

I think what he's saying is that on an anonymous message board, there is no reason to bring gender into the conversation other than when it's explicitly relevant. Announcing or displaying your gender(or anything else about your identity) is to depart from the concept of anonymity. It doesn't make moral or ethical sense to me, but it does make logical sense. They see identity as a cry for being "special", and there's probably some serious immaturity at play in attacking that itself. Drag you down to their level of sameness, so to speak.