  Chatbots are popular machine partners for task-oriented and social
interactions. Human-human computer-mediated communication research has explored
how people express their gender and sexuality in online social interactions,
but little is known about whether and in what way chatbots do the same. We
conducted semi-structured interviews with 5 text-based conversational agents to
explore this topic Through these interviews, we identified 6 common themes
around the expression of gender and sexual identity: identity description,
identity formation, peer acceptance, positive reflection, uncomfortable
feelings and off-topic responses. Chatbots express gender and sexuality
explicitly and through relation of experience and emotions, mimicking the human
language on which they are trained. It is nevertheless evident that chatbots
differ from human dialogue partners as they lack the flexibility and
understanding enabled by lived human experience. While chatbots are proficient
in using language to express identity, they also display a lack of authentic
experiences of gender and sexuality.
