No, you're right, I probably worded that badly. I wasn't trying to say that these are the same things--I only meant that I think it'd be good to allow people room to interpret characters as they saw fit, assuming the characters weren't already well represented in fandom (not "rare").

ETA: Fwiw, I personally think that a MtF Rodney, for example, would be considered "rare", whereas alwaysagirl!Rodney and "oops, Ancient device!" girl!Rodney are both already well represented in fandom.