[Helianthus]

Or maybe the speaker is from a culture that doesn't know that Tali is a Hebrew name for both boys and girls, or from a culture where Tali is only a dude's name, or... the hypothetical exceptions to your interpretation go on and on. [Ninja-edit] Your ninja-editted assumptions as to what the person meant by his question are an over-reaction: you don't _know_ that's what he meant, you're only seeing hints of it.[end ninja-edit]

It could _well_ be an innocent question, and there's no sense in generating righteous indignation over two sentences.

[masterzora]

Given that female pronouns were used several times in the opening paragraph, even if one didn't scroll down to the bio at the bottom, to assume that she must be a he, even on the basis of something such as a name (cf. George Eliot) is entirely unwarranted without further reason to back it up. But, you're right, it could have been a case of bad assumptions and only single-whammy sexism (the author's gender is still not germane to the article in any way). And it's still a downvote-worthy comment.