Help! How do I respond to this?

Yep - I've been pretty liberal about letting my images/personal blog etc. be accessible for the last while (for a long time I used pseudonyms on the internet, particularly because my name is so unique, but about 6-7 yrs ago I switched to my real name). Luckily, I've rarely been a target of this kind of communication, and when it has happened it hasn't been too creepy.

But, I have had a couple through my contact form, and also when the Contributor Spotlight profile went up - actually it's still there http://drupal.org/community-spotlight/ariane-khachatourians#comment-3714524 pretty harmless but also totally "icky".

I am pretty sure that about 90% of these kinds of comments are because of cultural differences - for us it's really not acceptable in a "professional" environment like this (or even in most social situations) for a stranger to comment on your physical appearance. But I think in some places, particularly where there's less gender equality, this is more the norm and widely accepted. I've tried not to let it freak me out too much, as luckily I haven't had any personal contact with the people (like talking to them in IRC first) and have just ignored the messages.

But since you did have more personal contact with this person, my suggestion would be totally along the lines of what Lin said - just responding with "Just so you know, I feel uncomfortable having people comment on my physical appearance." and maybe adding something like "...and prefer if our conversations can stay on the topic of Drupal."

Lin is (sadly?) kind of a pro at dealing with this stuff, but I think her super cut-to-the-chase and unapologetic approach is spot on. Just pretend you're a guy receiving a message like that - nobody would think it was offensive or weird if you were like "uhhh, that's really not appropriate and i'm uncomfortable with you complimenting my appearance in a professional communication".

I could swear there's an old thread in here somewhere about similar things, but I couldn't find it among all the job and event posts (maybe I need to do some group audience weeding in here...).

Let us know how it goes!

You have to respond in a way that makes you comfortable, but I usually ignore that type of comment. If I think the remark was meant to be benign, I really don't want the other party to feel uncomfortable. Tone gets lost in email quite often... and it just isn't a hill I want to battle over.

If the person were to continue with that type of remark, I might comment. Otherwise, I'd move on.

well, were it in person I'd tend to gasp all shocked like and look down my shirt for confirmation.

I've also made a point of enforcing my title (Senior blah blah whatever), or saying "I'm not sure what that has to do with my competency/helping you/etc, is there something you needed?"

But, I'm also a pushy, bad person.

I usually go with something like: "Thank you, but I would rather be congratulated on something I had control over and worked for - like my programming skills." If it's been a bad day I leave off the 'thank you' part. ;)

I find that approach keeps the person from feeling like they've been attacked for offering a compliment (not that it is one, just that that's usually the mindset on the other end of such lines) which keeps them from locking out your efforts to change their behavior. It also gives them clear guidance on what they should do next time and why the difference is important to you.

That's if the person you're talking to is reasonable. If they're not... then you'll find that out pretty quickly, and then I suggest just sending their emails to /dev/null.

I'm sure that this is already obvious to a lot of people, but not necessarily everyone, so I want to point out that for a lot of men, comments like this one, are really believed to be something positive. While I clearly understand why someone would send an entirely negative response to this, I don't think that's going to be entirely helpful in the end.

If I may, I would like to suggest something a long the lines of: "I appreciate that you want to thank me for helping out, but I would really prefer if gender could be kept out of this." This hopefully avoids being a mental slap, while pointing out that a mistake has been made.

I would be completely offended by the email, though, like most others, I've had plenty of comments on my gender / appearance / sexual orientation and how the commenter thinks it intersects with my programming ability.

While professionally I'd recommend something along the lines of what the diplomats above have said, I've generally responded with "I had no idea that I was a pretty girl, and no idea that you were a gender-centric asshole." And as far as I know, I've never suffered from it professionally, either. If the person responds, they usually do it with more respect than if I'd deferred or ignored the "complement."

A while back, I was really frustrated about the state of a specific issue queue. I felt like I spent way to much time educating people one what "reproducible" meant, and to little fixing actual problems. For to long I took it upon myself to educate to many people about what they should already now. It all boiled down to telling some energy requiring people in a firm tone that they needed to shape up.

In #contribute, someone told me that "If being somewhat rude in the issue queue is what it takes to not burn out, then so be it." I think that applies here too.
Quoting the OP: "this person is also genuinely interested in contributing to the project".
It's great that this person wants to help out, but if that comes at the cost of making xjm uncomfortable, no thanks. I've recieved xjm's help myself, and if risking the loss of a new contributer comes with xjm defending the right be a person, not a gender, then so be it.

@xjm, respond in a way that makes you feel ok, for the long term.