if you call everyone dude and a transfem person gets mad about it, don't get defensive. just say like "sorry, i won't do it again" and don't argue "actually it's gender neutral" or "i call everyone dude". even if you do, i guarantee she's heard that argument from someone who very much does not call people they see as women dude. i certainly have

same goes double for the word guy.

  • Hex [he/him]
    ·
    8 months ago

    Fair enough, sorry for misrepresenting your culture. The point I was trying to get to was that, in general, prescribing use of language is bad. A word means what the person saying it intended it to mean (and of course, the other side of that blade means that calling anyone anything can be rude / hurtful if it has that intention behind it) and as English develops, in some dialects of it, words like "bro" and "dude" are not meant with the meaning of "man family member" and "man (gender)" in some applications, and choosing to resist that change because the words previous meanings could be harmful in some contexts might not be something I agree with.

    If this is not the space for this discussion to be had I apologize, but it is one i would like to have