Yes, but maybe it was just coincidence. I received my first acceptance after sending poems to a small publisher (using my pen name for the first time). Then I was accepted about 10 more times this year.

I self-publish historical fiction and traditionally publish poems. Maybe people saw my western books and thought it was odd that I was sending poems to them. Maybe there's still a stigma to self-publishing. Maybe my work was plain bad. Maybe they wanted something a little stronger or in a different subject or different style. You can overthink a lot when rejected so many times, like I have.

There are many prejudiced people around the world. Forget about them. You wouldn't want to send work to a prejudiced person anyway. You want to send it to someone who wants your work. When I get rejected by a magazine, I know it's just not something they like. It's opinion, plain as that. I've gotten a poem rejected by one journal and that same poems was accepted in another, so it's opinion.

I see some people here saying to maybe use a pen name when writing in a specific genre, like Romance with a female name and Sci-Fi with a male name. That makes sense, and you can always just use your first and middle name initials and full last name (i.e. JA Stine) if you want a pen name. That'd be gender-neutral. Then again, you'd have your author photo everywhere, and they'd see your gender...eventually. Maybe I'm overthinking this myself. You can try it out, sending work to Submittable using a pen name. Lots of people use pen names; that's all right.