I am perplexed, it is such a trivial thing. How exactly does gender ever affect a story? (Unless you are homophobic and can't stand a romance between 2 same sex characters maybe)
Even if you believe it does, is anybody forcing you to play the other gender?
I honestly don't know, please, if anybody feels forced by Nintendo to play as a female Link then tell me and everything will maybe make sense.
Thank goodness. Link is a character, not an avatar.
He was supposed to be an avatar, at least Miyamoto said so a while back?
Off topic but f we consider Link a character, then Link is the worst character ever written.
He has no personality, never talks, and the only thing different from start to finish is the amount of items he has in his bag. Really boring guy that only becomes interesting when you control him, a lot of other video game characters actually are something before & after you run around in the world with them.
The best example of something close to a real character IMO would be TWW Link, he was a lazy guy with a loving sister & grandma. Then he lost something he loves, had motivation, gathered courage, showed emotion, and went through a real character arc.