Playing characters of different gender

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I like female characters. I like them in stories. I like them in games as protagonists. In writing I like making female characters as protagonists. And I like playing female characters in ttrpgs. And, shockingly or not, I'm not a woman.

There is probably an interesting psychological thing behind this (or not), but lets not go too deep into the whys. I just find them more interesting in many ways. And I think other players who play female characters feel the same way.

Maybe they just like watching woman kicking ass. Nothing wrong with that. Maybe they want to be a hot girl and do hot girl things. I'm on the fence about this one, because this could became super disrespectful in my opinion, but that just me. Some groups might be okay with it. Or others might be like me and want to explore and experience other aspects of being a female character. Like in a horror ttrpg dealing with stalkers, feeling helpless, experiencing sexism, harassment or abuse.

The reason this topic came up, because one of my players said that he does not understand why someone would play a female character, because it is just a skin since a male player cannot express the femininity of a real woman.

I think this statement comes from the misunderstanding of ttrpgs and fiction in general. Because with this argument I could say that a GM should not use female NPCs for the same reason. Or female writer should not write a male character in her book. Or even you should not play a knight, because you can't express the knightliness of the knight since you are not one. Obviously this is dumb.

If ttrpgs has any principle, then it would be, that decisions and imagination has no limit.

We play ttrpgs, write and read fiction to be someone we are not (and can't be) and experience things we can't. Being the opposite gender is part of this.

A male player can choose to play a female character for whatever reason and he is not obligated in any way to meet any requirements to do so. Meaning he does not need to "express the femininity", whatever that means, or meet the expectations of others by playing said character. Each player plays their character first and foremost for their own entertainment.

Of course nobody can play the opposite gender realistically, and they don't need to. This is not why we play ttrpgs. This is not the point.

Stephen King said, that if you don't know something you write about, imagine it. This fits to ttrpgs too. We are not playing to amaze anybody with our knowledge of the human psyche or our acting skills. We are elf rangers fighting orcs. We are augmented humans breaking into corporate labs. We are vampires struggling for our fading humanity.

I don't think it is that important that as a guy I don't play my character feminine enough as long as I'm having fun with it (and of course not annoying my group).