Does gender make a difference to gameplay?

Just wondering, have preordered the game (and am anxiously waiting for it to arrive), when it comes to character creation does the gender of the character have any significant bearing on the game in any way? Would a female character have any advantages/disadvantages from a male character other than visual appearance?

Absolutely not.

In fact, I can't recall a single game that has had gender-specific skills or abilities. Which is good, the last thing we need is people crying "SEXUAL DISCRIMINATION!!" all the time due to sex-based choices.

The closest to something like this I've ever seen was people choosing female over male in tribes1 because they were slightly harder to see (supposedly) and some fools were convinced they could ski faster.

Hummmm tribes 1, good times I miss them

In Daoc females were shorter i.e. more difficult to target...

There is no technical gameplay difference, but you will probably find that a lot of players treat male and female characters differently.

Vorquin, I didn't mean it in a discriminative way, I was thinking more along the lines of charm etc...eg. a male NPC who would be more likely to help out a female character as part of a quest (although maybe the devs haven't gone that in-depth).
Also from a stats point of view (and here is where I will get flamed) males could gain a 'slight' strenghth advantage over females, but maybe females would be more dexterous (could make it more tactical in team games).
Before anyone starts protesting I am not trying to discriminate in any way!