Male players can play female characters and female players can play male characters.
Those who complain about that only prove they dont understand what the term "roleplaying" even means.
Its really the very same reason why you can pick races other than human.
About races:
Picked Lightfoot Halfling for my Bard for their OP racial. Stout Halfling would have been fine, too.
Picked Half-Orc for my Fighter for their OP warrior racial.
Picked Seldarine Drow for my Sorcerer for style.
Picked human for my Dark Urge Barbarian because only humans can be this bad, even Lolth-Sworn Drow will have some standards.
Generally not interested in / because:
Dragonborn / cant even have proper facial expressions
Dwarf / ugly as almost always
Gith / and here I thought Dwarf are ugly
Tiefling / look absolutely stupid with their horns attached to the most fragile part of the skull; they seem to be OP for Paladin though ?
Human / boring, but see special use Dark Urge
Gnome / male ones are intolerably ugly. Female ones are great though, and their racial is super awesome, too. so if I have an idea for a character, I'd go for female. Maybe an evil Cleric, I dont know.
Elf, Half-Elf / boring. Though maybe High-Elf for Paladin ? Because style.
