/Agreed thumbs up
Ditto.
I'm more of the 'no cross-dressing' school. I've played in both persuasions of groups and I've just found things, in my personal experience, to remain much more adult/mature in groups where gender of characters and players remained the same. i.e. not speaking of anything sexual... just... as to the tone and seriousness of the game.
There is also an issue regarding this that I think some veteran roleplayers may tend to overlook.... that being that newbie players who are unaccustomed to roleplaying in general, much less cross-gender play, can be much more off-put by this practice than a veteran. In any game I'm in where there are new players around, I strongly discourage the practice... or if I am running the game, disallow it.
that, of course I understand. In nijmegen they were surprised when I turned up at a massive with a female character, they do not do this often as well, but well, I rolled from only a few roleplaying experiences in high school into an experienced group in university, and GMed only for new players, playing was in more experienced groups.
But my opinion still stands, if you are relaxed enough and just a little bit imaginative, you can effectively play a female character when being male, or vice versa.
As a matter of fact, in our current saga the resident girl is playing a magus, not a maga, and it hasn't been bad at all.
She often plays a male character.
One of our players does not, ever, play women; but that is because he does not want to and thinks he would not be able to do it well...
I almost never play men but the few times I have, no one thought it was strange. The only trouble I've ever had was with someone refusing to let me play because he didn't want girls in his group no matter what gender my character was.
It does feel a little awkward in my head to play men, though. I am a terrible actress.
Wow, not allowing girls in the group, that's... odd, I always felt that it was best to have a equal amount of men and woman in my group, but, seeing the demograph of gamers (and tech students, the only university in Delft is a technological one) this hope was often vain...
I think style of play is important, the rest isn't.
I think some of what has been said about cross-gender play is true... regarding people being mature and relaxed about it etc. My unfortunate experience however is that such qualities tend to be lacking in most people that want to engage in that activity.
Most cross-gender players I have encountered, with some rare exceptions, have been people who desired to make some sort of bizarre spectacle out of their characters and their play.
As I said, there are plenty of exceptions among players of quality (without seeking to further define that term and thus enter into another mine-ridden field of discussion being that of play-style.). But in general I tend to suspect an unknown player of having some manner of 'issues' in accompaniment when I hear they have a predisposition to playing cross-gender. Baggage of my own history perhaps.
That is just... unbelievable! Nothing really describe that, but it being their strange but self-imposed loss. What poor frightened old farts!!!
But... Well, she's a girl!!! A GIRL!!!!!! Who knows what she could have done!!! I mean, she ain't a guy, can't you see? She's something else, she's... ALIEN!!! 
As you say, their loss, and visibly not belladona's
He told me that, in his experience girls are there to be with a guy who dragged them there and after a short amount of time they get overwhelmed with the information or they get bored. If they stay for more than one session, they don't do their homework, they don't know the rules, etc...
Yeah, I suppose some female palyers are like that but I am not.
Never the less, if he was going to be like that, I didn't want to play. I like all the drama to be in the game. I can do without the real life kind.
Well, a lot of gaming groups like to sit arund in their underwear when they play, so letting a girl in could get...problematic. 
Nah, I'm joking.
Although I've had quite a few girls in various gaming groups, it's not a very large percentage. None have cause any problems, none were dragged along their boyfriends.
I've often playes a female character, and a lot other male players have also. I can't recall any girls playing male characters. I've yet to see a problem with this. But then again, we might not play as deeply as some might.
Just game mastered an initiatory Call of Cthulhu game this WE.
I had 3 players, 2 guys and a girl. One of the guy created a female bookworm, and the girl created a schwarzeneger-like cop character. Both perfectly managed to stay in role.
I had a very long running campaign of Runequest where a couple played a couple in game but with the Genders reversed. It worlked fine except for the pronoun confusion.
In the tremere covenant I played in there were quite a few marriages as well, though I stayed bachelor (by choice, having venus' blessing and mythic presence is more fun when you are not tied up). The only two that really had a relationship were Marina and the SG, the others all were guys...
I do think that in general girls tend to favour the narrative over the gamism more often than the stereotypical roleplaying guy - which on one hand challenges the gamist roleplayer on his conceptualisation of roleplaying (knowing the rules) as well as very often challenging his additude/skill toward/at acting in-character.
In fact I ran a session on a local convention this last week and my players turned out to be guys in their 40ies all struggling to cope with the fact that the game wasn't rulebased and the story was about internal character development rather than plot-driven... the were utterly clueless on how to roleplay without any dice or attack rolls. I'm certain they harbour no misogynist sentiments, but I could readily imagine them having been overly challenged if looking 20 years back (being on this convention today I'm sure they've gotten used to being rattled).
Now I'm also making myself guilty of gross stereotypes, but I do think that some stubborn old farts' rejection of female players stem from a narrow convention on what constitutes 'right' and 'wrong' ways of playing and a connected expectation of female players in that regard.
Uh... does that mean I'm a girl?
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Actually..... yes it does!
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You and me both
I feel less alone now! YAY!