The essence of the experience of interacting through the Internet with another person (who is perhaps next door, perhaps on the other side of Earth) is disembodiment. 

With the Internet, the personality of the online character free from a physical form and need not have any firm relation to reality. The cloak of relative Internet anonymity facilitates an easy construction of fantasy and a re-invention of self that, no matter how farfetched, would shock no one in a community that would not lift its brows at anything (not even at a nickname like "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds’ pet Lamarkj"). 

An Internet user can therefore very easily create any persona by mere typing and clicking. S/he can design the description, character, values of his/her online person as s/he like. This includes experimentations in gender-swapping.

This essay is an exploration of some of problems that may arise when users gender-swap on the Internet. These includes problems for the users, those they interact with, and the Internet community as a whole.