Okay, this didn't happen to me, but there is a guy on FB asking this question, and I am wondering if anyone has any insight.

According to the original poster (OP) one of his characters put on a the magic item that changes your gender, and the player freaked out. Quit the game, maybe stopped being that GM's friend.

I can't grasp why anyone would be upset by thing, but I am a very small sample size by myself, are there any players out there who would get very upset? I am really curious what would cause such a reaction...
This message had punctuation tweaked by the user at 02:47, Sat 16 Jan 2021.

I would imagine such a reaction would come from someone who very strongly identifies with their gender, and may have a (strong?) reaction against the other gender.

But you'd have to ask that person specifically. I've never seen that. The worst reaction I would ever imagine would be a lot of giggles or a hearty "WTF?". =)

In reply to Piestar (msg # 1):

That reaction seems...drastic. To say the least.

If player has an issue they should immediately raise it with GM; GM should immediately be sympathetic.

Player and GM should work together to remove whatever one person is uncomfortable over.

Mutual respect and empathy should help each come to a suitable compromise or solution.

Being as I wasn't there can't really say. It really depends on some background elements too, was this discussed prior, was this put in just to mess with said player, etc.

In reply to RanzarthPhx (msg # 4):

I am specifically asking for people who would share that person's reaction. You're in the same camp as me...

As I recall, there used to be a cursed magic in earlier editions that did just this. It doesn't exist anymore. I assume that's for a reason.

The implication here being that enough folks were bothered by it for it to go away during the changing cultural attitudes of the last 45 years.

Personally I don't see a big deal, but then, I don't play my characters such a way that gender makes much of a difference.