XYCat: So the gender is not really important?
As you can see, it strictly depends on how people perceive "male" and "female". It's not important at all to those who see it as a difference of body (and difference of education). It is very, very fundamentally important to those who see it as a difference of "essence" (some inherent trait that determine personalities, and will always make women be-that-way and men be-this-way - no matter education, culture, individuality, personal experience, etc).
So for the latter, a same "person" (like The Doctor) could never have a body of different sexes. I suppose that they will always interpet behaviours through this filter, even if it's scripted the same way (for instance, a male doctor screaming "run!" would be dispaying manly rationality, while a woman screaming "run!" would be showing womanly hysteria or weakness ; a male doctor showing compassion would show manly philosophical benevolence, a woman doing it would be maternal or expectedly sensitive, etc). And they will always attribute such difference of interpretation to an objective "character change", independant from their look (the same way Coke "tastes differently" to us whether it's tinted red or blue).
Or, if a behaviour cannot be reinterpreted this way (if it gets too blatantly "the same character"), I suppose they will have to go "
This is unrealistic, a real man/woman would never do or say this".
But yeah, it's all about the ability to imagine that a same entity could "pilot" (or "live in", or "be reincarnated in") a male or a female body. Since the beginning of the series, our societies have progressively evolved away from the idea that "men souls" and "women souls" are pre-programmed by nature to feel and act certain ways (wash dishes, prefer pink or blue, dominate or submit, follow reason or intuition, etc). It's getting reflected in TV series nowadays. But it's still shocking to some people, depending on their deepest beliefs.
I mean, "opinions".