I still haven't read anyone in the comments who can explain the difference between a gamertag that labels you as gay vs. a gamertag that labels you as a Star Trek fan or a USC grad or a Marine or anything else not having to do with sexuality.

If being gay is really irrelevant and unimportant to you, there should be no difference, and all such tags ought to be equally disruptive of your experience.

The truth is that ALL custom gamertags are unnecessary. If all we need is some identification, then all XBL needed to do was assign us a number. At the point that XBL users place value on IDing themselves using other things besides random number generation then why shouldn't gay gamers be able to use their sexuality as an inspiration for their tag? Other people use all sorts of other inspirations for their ID's and no one bats an eyelash. What is it about gay gamertags that make them so damn "unnecessary" and objectionable?

Instead of "Why do people need to proclaim their sexuality," the statement needs to be, "Who cares if people proclaim their sexuality? And if someone wants to ask why people need to proclaim their sexuality, the answer should be "I dunno, why do you feel the need to proclaim whatever the crap it is you proclaim in your gamertag?"