Teen Idle: look, it is not difficult for me to state that I am a female, so I cannot see why this is so difficult for you. It takes about 5 seconds total. You wrote that we might not ask people what their names are - on here, people have usernames, so you do not have to ask them what their names are - their names are stated upfront. I also know people who have an interesting userid and a really common "real name" they sign their posts with - such as "Christina". So the analogy with names is not fitting.

You are making a judgment when you say that people's gender assumption are their way of disrespecting you. I can see how being in such a small minority would make you hyper-vigilant to being disrespected, though, but trust me - people do not actively want to disrespect you - they are simply using shortcuts.

By the way, one way of respecting people is, simply, supplying them with the information they need to treat you the way you want to be treated. In your case, what is important to you is that you not be called "he" or "she", and, that your choice of avatars not be interpreted to mean that you are of the same gender as the person in your avatar. OK, do people a favor by stating it in the open. It is not that much work - quite on the contrary.

I personally was taught very early on that it is impolite to refer to anybody with a "he" or "she" if the person is in the room, and, that one should use the person's name when referring to that person in their presence, so I have adapted that rule of basic politeness 101 to online behavior by referring to people's userids rather than substituting with the pronouns. Pronouns, as I am sure you are well aware of given your level of academic achievement per OP, are used in-place-of-nouns, hence they are called pro-nouns. The simplest way to avoid using pro-nouns is by using nouns (in this case, userids). It is much simpler and much more polite than referring to people with "their". So this is what I do, unless the gender of the poster is crystal-clear from their own writing and I want to sprinkle a few pronouns on my post to avoid saying ABC ABC ABC again and again which gets annoyingly repetitive.

By the way, your choice of userid incorporates your age - if you plan to stay on the site for a long time, you may find yourself outgrowing your userid. If you plan to stay for a short while, then there is no issue.