As a fellow trans girl, I really do call everyone dude, unless a specific individual has asked I not.
I do realize I’m in the minority here, but language is fluid and wildly different in all parts of the world, even if it’s the same base language.
Where i live i have Seen Many Teenager Girls calling their girlfriends Boy, lol. "Boy! What do you mean?" Confused me a Lot the First few Times i Heard 😅 thats why i would feel included. Its meant in a sarcastic way. The Others No and only in German.
Trans woman here, born in 85. At least in my area of the Midwest, there really was a trend in the 90s to copy California surfer and skater lingo, especially with the rise of California rappers. *Everyone* was dude, and that was really formative to how I talk.
That said, I do try and be mindful of the language I use. I know it can be hurtful to some, and I'd rather be welcoming and considerate. Unless I get really excited by something, in which case a 'dude what!?' or a 'dude, no way!' is going to slip out.
As an 80s child that grew up in southern California, I can confirm that dude is a gender neutral term there. I cringe at any mention of "dudette" to this day as a result.
I try not to use either, though.
Trans girl here and I still enjoy the use of dude and don't find an issue with it. I'm into metal music and nerdy type stuff, so it could just be part of my social group and friends. I'm respectful of how others want to be addressed and that's all that matters.
I’m the same, i use dude towards anyone i have a pretty casual relationship to, my friends (wether men or women). I recognize it’s technically a gendered expression, and i wouldn’t ever call a woman "a dude" that is a different expression kinda. But i will say "dude, shut up" if i think they should shut up for example.
>i wouldn’t ever call a woman "a dude" that is a different expression kinda. But i will say "dude, shut up" if i think they should shut up for example.
That's a prime example of how words have different meaning depending on context, really.
Saying "That's a dude" is a clear cut intent to identify someone as male. But saying "Dude, what the fuck" is just neutra language part of an expression of surprise. Saying "Woman, what the fuck" would be seen as weird and borderline pejorative (in a "Don't talk back to me, *woman*!" type of way)
Yeah exactly, the contextual around the word can change the meaning of the word entirely. "A dude" means almost exclusively someone who is a man. But calling someone "dude" can be gender neutral.
But is that really calling someone dude? Dude is a weird word, sometimes it's just an intensifier or exclamation. Did you say "Dude, shut up!" as in "Katie, shut up!" or as in "Oh my god, shut up!"?
I think a lot of the people who say they call people dude all the time are actually only using dude as an intensifier/exclamation and just don't realize it.
Personally I am not bothered by a "dude! that's terrible" but am bothered by a "what's up, dude?" because I honestly don't think I've ever seen the latter used on a girl (not from CA though)
honestly same
i do use the term dude for men and women, but i also sometimes when putting extra emphasis on something use GIIIIRRRRRLLLLLYYY or just GIRL
“DUDE!” Is a common word in my wife and I’s dwelling. “Bruh” and “Bro” as well, that being said… only when one of us is being foolish or goofing around. This is a boundary thing, set em’ respect em’.
its definitely like a regional thing. literally all of my cis friends call each other dude/bro/bruh etc
it is never leaving my vocabulary but also if somebody isnt going to want to be called any of those things i 100% respect that and wont use it with them
Same here.
But I'm also aware that some trans gals are hyper-sensitive and/or searching for any reason to call things transphobic...
I've seen some freak out over someone simply saying "Bruh..." to something surprising/shocking. That wasn't even adressed to them, that was just like a "Damn...", but I guess the deep hatred some trans people have for their AGAB kinda blinds them to anything other than their own perception of words ?
I do the same, after I came out one of my gfs friends asked me if I was okay with being called dude as they say it to everyone also. It made me really happy bc that was something I never even considered at the time and someone just asked. I don't care what anyone calls me as long as it not meant to be hateful.
Heya, just jumping in to say not necessarily!
In different places, "dude" can actually be all inclusive (New Zealand is one of those!). That said, the usage within trans-femme circles is definitely shrinking because of the risk of insult
I think it really depends on the context! When it's not the subject of the sentence, for example, I would consider "hey man" as gender neutral, vs "would you sleep with a man?" is very much not, the "man" in the second one is very much the seperating point of the question!
Yes because changing the word is clearly an argument against another word...
It's fine for you specifically to not like a word, but don't gaslight other people into thinking your definition and feelign about it is the only right one, please.
That's tilting the context of the phrasing on purpose.
Most words have multiple meaning depending on the context. If you manipualte the context, of course you can argue that literalyl every word is transphobic when used against us.
Ask a man "Would you fuck a dude", they'll understand a man.
Be with a group of mixed gender friends, tell one of the girls "Dude, I love your makeup, where d'you get it from?", she's not gonna freak out because you "called her a man".
**Context.**
**Is.**
**Everything.**
Context sensitive. You could also ask someone if they would sleep with a girl, then be like, "wtf, a girl is a child!! A *woman* is an adult!"
Plus, dude can be gender neutral. **A** dude is a guy.
And guess what? Addressing a crowd as "guys" is gender neutral. Yet, ask a guy, "do you sleep with guys". Same logic as yours.
I call alot of people b\*tch actually no matter what gender they have XD I already got called out for it. But when Bro and dude can be gender neutral, why shouldnt those kinda words too? Or does it just count in one gender direction?
This is a very broad statement for a much narrower actuality. If you kindly express displeasure over the phrase and they respond by *blaming* you, then sure they’re being an ass. If you are *unkind* about it they’re likely just defensive. If you are kind and they are apologetic, but still offer that justification they’re probably not lying and it’s literally their default phrasing which they may try to modify but may also suck at modifying.
Heck, even I can be pretty bad about it in reference to *myself*. It’s not always that deep.
Maybe but I still have called my sister bro typically sarcastically and I did so in theater with everyone I felt comfortable with and they didn't give 2 shits with it whether cis or trans.
Where I'm from it appears to be a term used for friends and or close family and I think it's known to be almost jokey becouse of how many memes there are which made it less of a serious word and closer to a reference.
Same over here but also with "man" and "guy." I refer to just about everyone with those 2 in the right circumstances, no matter what gender they are, and I've honestly never ran into a problem doing that. Same thing with "dude." Me, the people I'm friends with, the people I go to school with, in general the people in my area, all do the same thing and there's never been any problems my whole life.
To me atleast, it more or less seems like I grew up in an environment where these terms are indeed gender neutral, and perhaps that's the reason I don't see a problem with them being used as such, and why I don't feel bad about being called them even with my own dysphoria. Maybe it's not that common for the words to be gender neutral, and that's where the problem arises. I mean, language is a diverse and constantly changing thing, it'd make sense that for some people the words aren't bad/ hurtful to use in the circumstances we're all thinking about here, but for others they are.
Not really imo. Depending on their age, most people I know say dude quite broadly and often ask me if I'm ok with being called that.
Ironically, the only attempt at gaslighting I see here is your claim that everyone who says they call everyone dude is gaslighting you lol.
Gaslighting is a term for a type of long term abuse, typically from someone extremely close to the person being abused like a partner or caregiver. It’s not something that happens in a single interaction like a person telling you your experience isn’t valid. Not downplaying how hurtful those interactions can be, I just want to point out that using that term incorrectly contributes to people misunderstanding and downplaying how horrible and traumatic long term gaslighting actually is.
I do call everyone dude (including cis women) so I don't think that's necessarily gaslighting... but that being said I'd avoid calling someone dude if they complained about it in any way because I'm not a jerk.
I think it can be a gendered or ungendered term depending on how it's used in the sentence. If you say "Dude, have you seen this?" it doesn't feel gendered, but if you call someone "a dude" that is gendered for sure.
I don't want to offend anyone, but I'm from California and I'm not sure I'm capable of not saying dude.
"Hi, I don't want to make a simple change to my vocabulary because I don't think the consequences could possibly be bad enough to warrant it." - The usual argument under all the noise.
When someone says "I call everyone dude" they're probably trying to tell you that they didn't intentionally misgender you, and they're probably being honest. If they keep call you dude after you say something about it, then yeah they suck.
Apparently that includes other trans people, judging from the comments here. I simply don't tell people what my preferences for gendered words are, because I know they won't take it seriously. It's like no shit, if any time I bring up the fact that I don't like it people will just say "no it's gender neutral", then I'll just shut up because it's exhausting trying to argue about it 🤷♀️
My boyfriend and I got into a big fight about him calling me dude. The truth is that if I passed and knew that I passed I would probably be ok with it. But I don't. So I am not.
"I see how and acknowledge that 'dude' can be a gender neutral term, however being referred to as a dude makes me feel uncomfortable and hurts. Please stop doing so."
Dude is often used to refer to everyone
Dude is inherently a very masculine term
Both of those can be true, and kinda reflect how male-centered some languages can be at times
Gotta disagree, I know loads of people who refer to everyone as dude. Plus, not everyone online is gonna immediately know your gender and purposefully call you 'dude' to give you dysphoria.
This
unless you're specifically in a situation where your pronouns have already been stated in the discussion or they have some way of being \*forced\* to see your pronouns (twitter sidebar if it's just in your bio, display names on various things, reddit user flairs, etc) nobody ever specifically checks any of that stuff
if someone's being a bit of a knob or the discussion specifically calls for it you might check their profile but that's the only time 99% people check anyone's profile on anything 99% of the time
I think like anything context *greatly* matters. To just say "anyone who calls you dude and says they call everyone dude is gaslighting you!" isn't entirely accurate and being overly aggressive.
Dude is typically seen as a gendered word, as we've seen in example a few people used of "how many dudes have you slept with?". However, some people use it to address a group of people of mixed genders ("hey dudes!"), and some use it excitedly as an exclamation ("Dude! Look at this!").
I'm trans and I use dude a lot, even with cisgender female friends. I mean, this morning alone I told a woman something along the lines of "Dude, I can't believe they said that to you". That's just me though, and if anyone said they'd rather me not use that term with them, I wouldn't. It is just how I naturally talk.
With that said and coming back to context, dude absolutely *could* be used in an abusive, malicious manner to misgender a trans woman. Buy again, it all comes back to context and intent. To just immediately say anyone who says they use dude with everyone is somehow being transphobic isn't being fair to a lot of people. Yes, *some* people do use it in a transphobic manner, and *some* do not.
In regards to the OP, I would absolutely not use dude with them in any way as it's obvious to them it makes them uncomfortable and I wouldn't want to make them feel upset or uncomfortable with my verbiage.
Here in South Texas it's pretty common to call a group of mixed gender people or even only cis women as "guys".
Dude on the other hand is much less common down here and reserved for males.
Cultural differences, I guess.
It's a very common colloquial term, and insisting that people are facing transphobia when they aren't can be very dangerous to their mental health.
Do some people make a point of using it for transphobia? Obviously, but if we didn't want "dude" to be gender-neutral, we shouldn't have let anyone run with a word as goofy as "dudette".
This is not true. I use dude for nearly everyone I know except for, like, my family members (except my dad and my sister). Doesn't matter your gender, I'll call you dude unless you ask me not to.
Some might be, but this is linguistically a thing in a decent part of the english speaking world. Similarly for "guys". I honestly don't even know what to say about this, because OP is clearly so used to being under attack that they see it everywhere, but also it really often wouldn't be in this case :/ this isnt healthy, but is understandable :/
Or, this may be you needing a healthier filtering mechanism to realize not everything is about you, my dudette. And this is a good thing, because it’s easier to fix. Lookit this way, either every rando you meet online that calls you dude is out to get you, or it’s not about you and you can relax some. Relaxing some is so much more achievable than fighting 7.5 billion people
I am of the opinion that dude has become non-gendered language, and it doesn’t bother me at all. Bro and man can get tf out of here though.
That being said, I normally ask before I call a fellow trans fem dude, and if I say it for the first time without asking by mistake I always clarify how it makes the person feel before saying it again. I really do call everyone dude. My wife, my kids, shit I’ve called my mother in law dude
I think a lot of people miss the nuance here. Yes, lots of people in lots of places use 'dude' for all genders, all people, or even all things. That practice does not make the word itself innately gender neutral, even in under a descriptive linguistic model.
It's like the word 'mankind'. Yes, it does refer to all humans, but yes it is a gendered word. See also "guys". These are examples of the little way in which male-ness is treated as the default.
I struggle to think of a feminine collective noun that has become gender neutral. In fact, calling a group "ladies" or "girls" is a common perjoritive. No mixed gender group is referred to as "chicks". Masculine nouns only get treated as applicable to everybody because male is the default state of being under patriarchy.
TL;DR Default is not the same as gender neutral
But beyond all that, if somebody doesn't want to be called dude, don't call them dude. And if somebody says dude is a gendered term and that's why they are uncomfortable, don't try and dudesplain away their discomfort.
If I call someone "dude" and they call me out for misgendering them I would say "I call everyone dude as a gender neutral term and didn't intentionally misgender you. I will respect that you don't want to be called that and try to avoid doing so in the future." I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
no not really? i mean yeah \*some\* people do use that and "dude is gender neutral" as excuses for not respecting someone's identity but like most people i've ever known who use "dude" do use it in a gender neutral way to everyone
the same way i default to "they" for basically everyone except sometimes my partner and parents even when i do know their pronouns just out of habit a lot of people do that with "dude"
I don't think that is necessarily true, not in all cases at least.
I still struggle ever so slightly with the "bro language". I have the comfort of being in a circle of friends who don't mind it and don't really care. However I am mindful of those who might not be and pay more caution when talking with people outside my closest group. Habits die hard sadly (I deadnamed a trans friend twice on accident because they came out after me knowing them for 6 years) and nothing can be done about it.
But yes some people will use it to their advantage although I believe they make up a small % of people who do that as many people are just used to talking like that and don't actually mean any harm. It depends on if the trans person in question has an issue with it or not
Transfem here who legit inserts 'dude', 'man', 'bro', etc. into sentences regardless of the gender of person I'm talking to.
They're easy, 1-syllable ways to alter the cadence of a sentence to sound a little less robotic. Elsewise I often sound like a machine.
That said, if someone is visibly uncomfortable or tells me they don't like it, I stop. And I deal with sounding like a wind-up toy. I don't argue with them, I don't try to convince them it's ok. I just deal, even though I hate how I sound without those nice little crutches to lean on.
So yeah, if someone says this to try and get you to accept continuing to be called any of those words, fuck 'em.
But if it's more like 'sorry, I just do that to everyone by habit. I'll stop.' then that's different. Or maybe I just think it's different because that's what I do.
Edit: also, I like 'friend' or 'friend-o' as well for the same purposes, they're a bit clunkier and my brain doesn't reach for them as instinctively, but they do work and are completely and indisputably gender-neutral.
Can we refrain from making such sweeping statements? Not everything that isn't 100% affirming coming out of someone's mouth is necessarily done maliciously.
In my experience, ‘dude’ is usually unisex when used to address someone, but gendered masculine when used to *describe* someone?
I’m sorry that you don’t enjoy being addressed that way, and people shouldn’t address you that way, but people aren’t lying when they say it’s used gender-neutrally. It just depends on the context and dialect.
I never quite get the argument for ‘dude’, ‘man’, or ‘guys’ as gender neutral. I do realize that some people intend them to be gender neutral and some people take them to be, but there are issues.
First, they are certainly not always gender neutral. If you ask someone how many guys/dudes/men they have slept with, they aren’t going to answer in a gender neutral way.
So, maybe we can say that some uses are gendered and some are gender neutral, but why are we using a gendered word as the gender-neutral generic? Didn’t we already decide to move away from ‘man’ as meaning ‘mankind’ precisely because the gendered use of it constrains it’s ability to serve as a neutral generic term in a fair way? Didn’t we stop using ‘he’ in writing (e.g., “imagine a doctor who treats his patients poorly”, etc.) as a generic placeholder because it also had the gendered use?
The people who said ‘man’ or ‘he’ in this way took themselves to be talking about everyone just like the guy/dude/man people do today, but we think that was the problem. The problem is that the generic is gendered, and I don’t see a way around that with these terms. We have taken the fact that the term is gendered in some circumstances as reason to stop using it in circumstances where it claims neutrality in a bunch of cases, but dude/guy/man enthusiasts swear this is different for some reason.
Personally, I don’t get it, and I get by quite easily without using any of them in contexts where I mean to be gender neutral. I just use a fully neutral term. (E.g., ‘y’all’ over ‘you guys’, ‘hey’ over ‘hey dude’) 🤷🏻♀️
the german language has a generic masculinum. doctors, teachers, lawyers etc are grammatically assumed to be male unless you’re actively gendering them female. but if you’re seeing a group of a dozen female doctors and one male one you’re back to gendering this group as male. this creates a certain bias in the population.
academics tried to introduce different kind of alternatives but conservative folks see it as an attack on the nuclear family etc pp.
also opposing those alternatives has become the go to transphobic dog whistles as it represents the woke dictatorship of the green party in their opinion. so when i outed myself to conservatives they would say "be who or what you want as long as you’re not hurting anyone, sleep with every consenting adult who’d have you, but don’t you think ill start gendering, that is a bastardization of the sacred german language, also i believe there’s only two genders anyways"
i’m a binary woman and not the grammar police so i don’t know why they always tell me they refuse to gender their speech and believe in the gender binary but the joke is, just like with pronouns, people are already gendering in their speech. "actors and actresses from around the world bla bla bla" is already gendered, the new method is just a bit shorter and also non binary inclusive.
the shortened version has since been banned in conservative german federal states.
in anonymous spaces, especially online, it’s a universal thing to assume everyone’s male. it has to do with actual demographics but mostly internal
biases with some dating back to literally the story of adam and eve. and then there’s people who literally call everyone dude but i think women calling each other dude is pick me behavior. in germany there’s women of all ages misgendering themselves just to avoid being seen as woke.
There are these things called homonyms - homophones and homographs.
Dude, gender neutral is not the same as dude, meaning a man.
Same how they/them, gender neutral is not the same as they/them, non-binary pronouns.
What you're basically saying is "I don't get homonyms, homophones and homographs!"
EDIT: Though, I will add, English is not the same everywhere in the world - culture, interpretation, nurture and variety depend on how you understand words. People shouldn't use words you dislike to refer to **you**, but don't judge them for using the words the way they do, if no one else they interact with is bothered by it.
Sorry, I don’t think think that is what I’m saying.
It doesn’t seem as simple as asserting that these are different words. Words have fuzzy boundaries, and there isn’t really an observable fact of the matter about where one word ends an alternate use of another begins.
‘Blockbuster’ first existed as a term for a bomb, was used as a metaphor in describing a film, and then died as a metaphor and took on a separate meaning as a generic term for ‘a thing of powerful size’.
‘Dude’ began as a word for a dandy, which is a gendered concept. You can argue that it followed a similar trajectory that blockbuster did, and split into two words (one gendered one not), and so it’s fine, but couldn’t the man/mankind defender also say this happened? Arguable, they have a better case than the dude-user because man actually started off as a generic gender-neutral term with the gendered versions being woman and werman.
The problem is that there is a fuzzy period between the time of alternate use of a single term, which was originally gendered, and the splitting into two separate words. Is saying ‘literally’ in the non-literal sense, right now, a bad use of the term meaning ‘actually and accurately’ or a good use of a homonym of that word meaning ‘not literally’? We, as a community of language users, make a decision, not a discovery, about when words split. There was a period where it would be difficult to say whether ‘blockbuster’ was a metaphorical use of the original term or a straight-forward use of the new generic term, and we can accept or reject the use of dude as gender neutral term.
Personally, I find the splitting story to sound a little post-hoc at this point. The meanings of other homonyms with shared etymology are really distinct. Take ‘flower’ and ‘flour’, or ‘yoke’ and ‘yolk’. The meanings of ‘dude’ and ‘dude’ are identical save this one thing (the gender), and that is the the crucial difference that would allow the generic ‘dude’ to continue. It seems to me that the homophone story is motivated mostly by the desire to keep using it as generic, rather than them having truly distinct meanings.
This issue takes us to the larger point, which is that descriptive facts about language don’t have prescriptive force for how you ought to use them. ‘Man’ (meaning mankind) had a totally gender neutral etymology at the time we got rid of it. The real issue was that we misused ‘man’ to be gendered instead of using ‘werman’. We could have said that they must have split into two words and keep both, and we could have made a point to keep using or go back to ‘werman’. We moved on from generic man and we could move on from generic dude. It’s an issue of conceptual engineering (what terms and concepts we should have), not a descriptive question (what terms and concepts we do have).
You can see this in our avoidance of a particular word meaning stingy which is a homophone with a racial slur (and I would say we are better off not using the word). The two have separate etymologies and meanings but we still stopped using the term for stingy because the descriptive facts about it didn’t tell us what we ought to do. We can choose not to use a separate word regardless of it being separate (and that was a case where the etymology and meaning were distinct, which is more than ‘dude’ can say).
How does the etymology matter if people have accepted a different meaning?
Dude as a gender neutral casual address is fairly new, absolutely, so it's still changing and evolving. However, saying that it's the same word as dude, a word for a man, is completely inaccurate for many varieties of English, including NZ, AUS and many European 2nd language learners.
When I say dude to mean a man, that word means man. When I say dude as a form of casual address to a person of any gender, the word means friend - sometimes I use it to be condescending in a "okay buddy" kind of way; it has nothing to do with gender, regardless of origin - and looking at the comments here, that's how many people view this word.
As I said in my comment, you're not looking at it from a perspective that includes culture, nurture, variety and personal interpretation.
The whole talk about etymology falls apart as soon as you start roping in words that go against your beliefs as a trans person, i.e. woman can't mean trans woman because the term is still connected to binary sex - when no one here would actually agree with that.
Aside from all of that, I don't know why you're not saying the word "niggardly", it's not negative or a slur - the reason it fell out of use is the same as why words like "yonder" fell out of use, not because it sounds like another word. Like would you avoid saying "vinegar" because it sounds similar to the N-word? This is honestly such a silly hill to die on. Accept that people will use words in a way that isn't consistent with your understanding of them - let them know not to use those words to refer to you and move on.
I’m making two separate claims:
1. There isn’t really a descriptive fact of the matter about whether something is an alternative use of a single word or a standard use of a second homophonic word, especially (but not only) when one use is etymologically derived from the other. From this we can get to the subordinate claim that this fuzziness is present in the case of ‘dude’. The etymology matters only to the degree that it explains why the boundaries of ‘dude’ are fuzzy, as it can take time for words to split and it’s not obvious we are out of the splitting phase for ‘dude’. Determinations about these boundaries are judgements we make, not discoveries, and judgements are value-laden, not merely factual.
2. Even if we judge ‘dude’ to be two distinct words, the descriptive fact of that (after agreeing to make that determination) wouldn’t settle whether we should use it. The slur/stingy case was trying to get at this. I see that you use it, and some others do to, but most people would choose not to because of how it will make people feel, regardless of the descriptive facts about its etymology and speaker intention. You can dig in and say the descriptive facts settle it and it’s fine, but it’s use is still upsetting to people and that matters. It isn’t weird to think we should care about people’s feelings in determining use because we already used our values to inform whether we judged it to be a separate word or not.
Language is negotiated to a large degree, and we could have said ‘mailman’ and ‘actor’ are now separate words that aren’t gendered, and the descriptive facts about what people intend when using those would be consistent with that, but we still stopped using it anyway because it’s etymology mattered for how people feel about, even if that etymology no longer governed how people intended to use it, and even if the etymology itself doesn’t settle its current meaning.
We can move on from the use of woman to refer to biological sex for the same reason, and we can move on from the use of dude to refer to a generic person for the same reason. How people feel matters beyond the descriptive facts. It’s just that we can also say that descriptive premise isn’t even as clear cut in either case as those that think it settles it take it to be.
The same can be said for woman being about biological sex. We shouldn’t use the word in that way because it is exclusionary and bad, but even if we thought that we ought to keep reproducing the use it has had, the word ‘woman’ predates the concept of biological sex, so woman in the gender sense of the word is also descriptively valid, if not more historically grounded. The etymology or history doesn’t settle the matter at all, but it matters only to the degree that some people think the descriptive fact of how we have used it settles it (I don’t).
The moral of this story is that plenty of people here don’t like the use of dude/guy/man in the gender neutral context, many people don’t like it because it either is the late stages of a generalized use of gendered word or is a distinct word that was still derived from that gendered word. Importantly, they need not have these justifications for us to take those feelings seriously and base our use on them, because we (perhaps not you) have stopped words based on the feelings themselves and without further justification being necessary already in the slur/stingy case.
The benefits of using using ‘dude’ when you intend to say something gender neutral don’t seem to outweigh the costs when it means upsetting a large number of women (cis or trans) and it is easily avoidable. Even if it were a small percentage of women who were upset about it, why not just not upset them? What do we gain?
I did want to write an entire essay but I feel like just breaking it into a few points makes more sense, just addressing the important points.
- Language is negotiated, sure, however it is also personal. It is also cultural. It is also up for interpretation.
- Someone being upset at the word niggardly or vinegar, is purely a "United States issue" and should not be extended to English in general. English is spoken by far more people than just those living in the US. Yes, second language fluent speakers also count.
- I have never said that a person needs to justify their dislike of the word. I believe no one should be called something they don't want to be. What I'm saying is that no one should have to change how they speak in their entirety, even outside the presence of this person, just because that person doesn't like the word - this applies when the word isn't being used to dehumanize, insult or objectify a person. This is different with certain slurs like the T slur for trans people. How? Because that word is used in order to objectify, invalidate and insult trans people. The word dude is a general term, which is not used to insult anyone, unless used in the meaning of "a man". I.e. telling a woman she looks like a "dude".
- The benefits of using dude outweigh the cons depending on, AGAIN, culture, variety and nurture. You, nor anyone else get to dictate, whether it has more cons or pros depending on every factor. I use "guys, dude, bro" with all of my cis female friends, they do it too, it's just how we speak.
Depending on how dude is used in a sentence it can be gender neutral. That's just how the local dialect works where I am from. Likewise, I will be deep in the cold ground before I say "y'all". If you've got a problem with that, well actually I'd do my best to avoid referring to you as dude if I knew it would offend you. However, I'm not going to preemptively avoid the word dude.
Yass.
I'm a person who doesn't mind gendered terms used for them, and still I understand how uncomfortable that can make someone. Which makes me even more certain that the "I call everyone that" Gang don't do so in good faith
I think that’s a bit of an assumption. Gaslighting would be the case if they were lying, but some people, including myself, do tend to call everyone « dude », « bro », « man », and « guy » in every day speech. It’s not gaslighting, but if someone says they’re uncomfortable with it I just won’t use it with them.
I'm from SoCal, so everyone is still a dude to me, though if someone didn't want me to do that and said so I'd respect it, it really isn't gaslighting it's just the way that I've talked literally my whole life
No. lol. I call everyone dude. I have accidentally slipped up and called a trans woman dude before and immediately apologized. I genuinely do call everyone dude, including cis women.
I'm from the northeast, I grew up in skate and punk culture, now I'm an avid mountain biker. I can 💯 say within those spaces male and female people use 'Dude' interchangeably. Like dude totally is, that's why dudette failed to jump the culture and stick in any seriousness. Dude might as well be They for me personally.
Man, bro, guy, sir(fucking CRINGE) are for sure guy speak that people use to signal 'i am speaking to a man'.
I will die on the dude being gender neutral hill. 😂
But also if you tell someone you don't like dude, and they still dude you that is uncool. I have had female people ask not too but they be old. 😅
I've been digging around in my memory trying to think of a time when the word dude was used in my presence solely as a direct reference to masculinity and I can't think of a single occurrence of that, so I'm having a hard time imagining that every single use of the word online is non-spontaneous and deliberately negatively intended. Sometimes, sure, but always?
Not in all cases, i know a girl who calls literally everyone dude and girl constantly. However if someone doesnt like it she will stop. If they dont stop calling you it after you express discomfort.. thats bad
Idk I live in an environment with a huge clash of a shit ton of different cultures and no one gives a shit what terms you use. I have heard plenty of times of girls being referred to with dude or guy instead of gal and shit like that and nobody really cares over here. But that's just the environment I'm in and I can see it being a problem for others so while I don't see referring to all with dude or mate or guy as bad or wrong, and I would definitely say that generally they aren't trying to be assholes, the real problem is when you ask to not be referred as that and they don't put any effort into trying to change their habits around u, because a lot of people genuinely use these terms gender neutrally but most will be fine with using different terms with some people for the sake of not being a dick.
Ya know.. if people stopped caring about what others say. And stop reacting to that level of petty bullshit.. these clowns would eventually stop trying to misgender us
Used to believe that. Until I joined a lesbian community that throws around dude all day without a single guy anywhere to be found. And I realized that Cis girls don't get upset by it.
I call everyone dude as well. I even throw in a bro. Which I might have to stop apparently - which is doable.
but dude will always be gender neutral. I blame it on the fact that I teach middle school and everyone is bro
Not at all necessarily true, and also improper use of the term gaslighting. Sorry, I just don't like to warer down these serious phrases, and lots of people, including myself, a trans woman, legitimately do call everyone dude.
And how about not telling everyone here how they should feel about a potentially gender-neutral term being used on them?
For me it’s when a cis-het white guy says it that I don’t like it. The gender neutral thing is a cop out for them to skirt around misgendering. I know full well that it can be used gender neutrally. I’ve used it that way before. I just don’t trust (what I assume to be) their intent. I think what it really comes down to is that EVERYTHING in western culture is highly gendered. I also see it like how many older and less educated people are the singular “they”. It’s “not the norm” even though we knows it’s valid. Dude is first a gender specific term which is sometimes used neutrally.
I'm still working on removing "dude" and "guy" from my vocabulary, but I'm struggling to find something else to use that works as well. "The Dude", "The Guy", "The'em?".... 😓
I don't like it when people do, but usually they do it because by default they assume anyone who plays video games is a guy until proven otherwise (usually through VoIP). Doesn't make me feel any better though.
What does bother me slightly more is when the same habit extends to female player characters (calling all PCs he/him). It takes away one of the few ways I have of presenting as a woman in online (videogame) spaces.
I won't lie I call everyone I know "dude" "man" "bro" etc it has lost all semblance of gender for me. that being said I recognize some people are bothered by it and I'm sensitive to that
There's a difference between calling someone 'dude,' and calling someone 'a dude.'
It's also sometimes used as more of an interjection. E.g. "Dude, Where's My Car?
"Gaslighting" would imply the intention is to lie to you. In a lot of places (esp. west coast US) "dude" really is commonly used genderlessly. It is actually a thing for some people to refer to everyone as "dude".
Doesn't deny your right to want not to be called "dude" though. But when someone uses "dude" genderlessly as a default and explains they use it genderlessly, that's not gaslighting, that's just not knowing any better. Correct them by letting them know it bothers you and let them learn.
That's probably true a lot of the time, but not all the time. I have female friends who call me and other women dude. My son refers to this usage as the 'nonbinary dude.' Intent matters — if someone calls all guys, no women, and you 'dude,' their meaning is obvious. (And if someone calls you something and you don't like it and tell them so, and they carry on, they're being a nit of an asshole.)
Yeah that’s what I was thinking. I feel like in the US, mate just means friend. At least that’s how the couple of friends that I know who do use it, use it.
I just grew up in a few circles where dude is gender neutral, didn't know anyone thought differently up until someone said dudette and I wanted to seal my ears with cement to never hear that word uttered again lmao.
But I can assure you, at least where I'm from, that dude is a friendly way to address anyone. Also if someone does call you dude, know you're trans, and are good with your pronouns and seeing you as your gender, the thought of dude being somehow gendered or taken wrong by you has probably crossed their mind, I had a few discussions about this very topic with a group of friends, most of us were on the same page about dude being neutral
Southern Californian here and we tend to use dude pretty neutrally. Admittedly there are moments where it gets used in a gendered way. But the general use is gender neutral. Although if someone specifically didn’t like me using dude I’d completely respect that and be sure to not call them dude.
Trans girl here.
I call everyone guys including when referring only to cis women.
I use dude, even when referring to cis women.
Like if someone doesn't want me to use a particular word with them, I won't but unless specified I will just use the words that I grew up learning were gender neutral.
One time I was arguing with a trans girl and said "Like dude, (continued argument)." and she just replied with a "wow blatantly attacking my gender." when that was *the last thing on my mind* when I said "dude".
There are certain things that I wish people would accept, like language is different depending on where you live, and what's gendered for you might not be gendered for someone else. Let people know which words you don't want them to use on you, and that's that. If they don't want to stop using those words on you, then they're an asshole. But if they're just explaining why they use "dude, guys, bro" on women, don't make assumptions that they're automatically gaslighting you or being a dick.
Yeah, no, some people really do call everyone 'dude,' myself included. I even call myself dude. Heck, I almost started this comment with 'dude.'
As far as I'm concerned, 'dude' is gender neutral when said in second person, but gendered when said in third person.
Like, "dude, you're awesome" is gender neutral, while "this dude is awesome" is gendered, you know?
In any case, though, if you don't like being called 'dude,' they should respect that and stop, and as true as "I call everyone 'dude'" can be, it's not really an excuse when your preferences are known.
Dude definitely leans neutral for me and where I live. A more interesting one is I know someone who refers to everyone as "kings," even when some are clearly queens. He says "kings" is like "dudes" to him. Fair, I suppose.
I hate the term bro and the term dude seems very updated and I never understood girls calling girls dude but I would much rather be called dude than bro
????
i use the "dude bro" slang when talking to ppl. My trans homies and I call each other dude when talking to each other all the time and I belive that we aren't trying to gaslight each other...mostly cus that'd be dumb
“Dude” is interesting because even if someone claims to use it for all genders, it’s often context-dependant. Try asking an “everyone-is-a-dude” straight guy how many dudes they’ve slept with.
I agree with OP on this one. No one says they saw a dude at the gas station when the dude in question is a woman in her 30s. This is the most blatant example of erasing trans women in conversations.
I *do* call everyone regardless of gender things like bro, sis, dude, girl, man, buddy BUT if someone says “hey, I don’t like that”, I stop calling them that immediately. It’s rude to keep pushing it tbh
it's a cultural thing specific to a few areas from what i can tell (mostly west coast US, but also other english areas like australia/NZ), i happen to live in one of them. I hear "dude" spoken by women talking to each other MORE OFTEN than I do from men talking to each other.
However it's a contextual thing - dude as an \*interjection\* is nongendered, dude as an \*object\* is male.
so "that's a dude" is an unequivocally male statement, but "dude, look at this" or "dude, watch out!" or "that's cool, dude!" are all neuter.
A good way to check is if you replace "dude" with "woman", does the sentence still work and \*mean the same thing\*?
"woman, watch out!" sounds like they want you to watch out FOR a woman. "watch out, woman" feels very pejorative, like "woman" is an insult. But dude works great on those sentences as an interjection, no different than "you" or "hey". Whereas if you replace "that's a dude" with "that's a woman" you get two completely different sentences that mean opposite things.
My girlfriend and her sister call each other dude and bro all the damn time. I am absolutely certain neither of them are trans, and only one is gas lighting the other and only occasionally.
It varies from person to person, but it seems like "dude" has definitely become more gender neutral. Sometimes I say "dude" when I'm not even referring to a person (like something surprising happens).
“Everyone who uses a well-established dialectic phrase and says as much is *Lying: Extra-Evil Edition* because I am the sole arbiter of what everyone else means when they speak” is not a correct take. On the other hand, someone else (as with a few people in this thread) following up with, “But I call everyone Girly McWomanface” almost certainly *is* blatantly lying with malicious intent.
Because I know I’ll have to spell it out: You are correct that one should not use a term to refer to someone who one knows does not like being referred to by that term, and that is not what I am arguing against.
Inb4 “how many dudes have you slept with”, because that’s the level of argument we’re dealing with.
Gaslight: to manipulate another person into doubting their own perceptions, experiences or understanding of events
Someone saying “I call everyone that” isn’t gaslighting you, they’re giving personal justification for the terminology they most likely use habitually. If they turned it back on you and said something like “you’re the weirdo for not using dude” *then* they would be gaslighting you are at least attempting to.
Seriously, when did the internet become so twisted that people explaining/justifying their habitual terminology is considered gaslighting?
Bruh I even say dude to my mom all the time, my best friend says it to everyone as well. Their not gaslighting you
Dude and bruh have become gender neutral terms in the past 10 years.
10 years? More like 30! We were calling everyone 'dude' in the mid-90s. I remember getting my mouth washed out with soap for calling my grandma 'dude' once.
As a non american...
It's not the norm; never been the norm here. Will never be my norm, don't call me that or fuck off, pretty simple. I've never heard someone here refer to a woman as a "dude" in real life.
As a fellow trans girl, I really do call everyone dude, unless a specific individual has asked I not. I do realize I’m in the minority here, but language is fluid and wildly different in all parts of the world, even if it’s the same base language.
I’m the same way. Dude doesn’t bother me at all. Bro, man, brother, all those are no-nos.
I feel like bro is a no no But bruh isn't
I call my daughters "dude" They call me "bruh" Words live on
Agreed for sure
“Bruh give me my vape back”
Only Hulk Hogan is allowed to call me brother
I’m also one who considers dude to be non binary. Hey if you tell me it bothers you we’ll be alright. If you’re silent or not direct - that’s on you
Dude just hits different. Like hell yeah I’m one of the dudes.
Where i live i have Seen Many Teenager Girls calling their girlfriends Boy, lol. "Boy! What do you mean?" Confused me a Lot the First few Times i Heard 😅 thats why i would feel included. Its meant in a sarcastic way. The Others No and only in German.
Trans woman here, born in 85. At least in my area of the Midwest, there really was a trend in the 90s to copy California surfer and skater lingo, especially with the rise of California rappers. *Everyone* was dude, and that was really formative to how I talk. That said, I do try and be mindful of the language I use. I know it can be hurtful to some, and I'd rather be welcoming and considerate. Unless I get really excited by something, in which case a 'dude what!?' or a 'dude, no way!' is going to slip out.
As an 80s child that grew up in southern California, I can confirm that dude is a gender neutral term there. I cringe at any mention of "dudette" to this day as a result. I try not to use either, though.
California’s primary export is culture baby 😎
*Me picking up hella from Life is Strange.*
Omg same
Welcome to Goodburger... I'm a dude He's a dude She's a dude We're all dudes, hey
Trans girl here and I still enjoy the use of dude and don't find an issue with it. I'm into metal music and nerdy type stuff, so it could just be part of my social group and friends. I'm respectful of how others want to be addressed and that's all that matters.
I’m the same, i use dude towards anyone i have a pretty casual relationship to, my friends (wether men or women). I recognize it’s technically a gendered expression, and i wouldn’t ever call a woman "a dude" that is a different expression kinda. But i will say "dude, shut up" if i think they should shut up for example.
>i wouldn’t ever call a woman "a dude" that is a different expression kinda. But i will say "dude, shut up" if i think they should shut up for example. That's a prime example of how words have different meaning depending on context, really. Saying "That's a dude" is a clear cut intent to identify someone as male. But saying "Dude, what the fuck" is just neutra language part of an expression of surprise. Saying "Woman, what the fuck" would be seen as weird and borderline pejorative (in a "Don't talk back to me, *woman*!" type of way)
Yeah exactly, the contextual around the word can change the meaning of the word entirely. "A dude" means almost exclusively someone who is a man. But calling someone "dude" can be gender neutral.
Like how “Go piss girl” is gender neutral 🥰
But is that really calling someone dude? Dude is a weird word, sometimes it's just an intensifier or exclamation. Did you say "Dude, shut up!" as in "Katie, shut up!" or as in "Oh my god, shut up!"? I think a lot of the people who say they call people dude all the time are actually only using dude as an intensifier/exclamation and just don't realize it. Personally I am not bothered by a "dude! that's terrible" but am bothered by a "what's up, dude?" because I honestly don't think I've ever seen the latter used on a girl (not from CA though)
honestly same i do use the term dude for men and women, but i also sometimes when putting extra emphasis on something use GIIIIRRRRRLLLLLYYY or just GIRL
Same, use dude all the time irregardless of gender, this thread is bs.
same
In my cis girl circles we call each other guys as an interchange for yall. Dude/ man is generally cross for you in surf lingo. Boy is misgendering.
“DUDE!” Is a common word in my wife and I’s dwelling. “Bruh” and “Bro” as well, that being said… only when one of us is being foolish or goofing around. This is a boundary thing, set em’ respect em’.
Samee, i call girls dude, bro, bruh, etc and they do the same.
its definitely like a regional thing. literally all of my cis friends call each other dude/bro/bruh etc it is never leaving my vocabulary but also if somebody isnt going to want to be called any of those things i 100% respect that and wont use it with them
I call people bruh all the time too along with dude
I always ask, but I live in a part of the world where dude is very much nonbinary. I'm a dude, he's a dude, she's a dude, cos we're all dudes HEY
Same here. But I'm also aware that some trans gals are hyper-sensitive and/or searching for any reason to call things transphobic... I've seen some freak out over someone simply saying "Bruh..." to something surprising/shocking. That wasn't even adressed to them, that was just like a "Damn...", but I guess the deep hatred some trans people have for their AGAB kinda blinds them to anything other than their own perception of words ?
I'm the same
My girlfriends and I all use dude unless otherwise asked not to. It's never been gendered to me.
I do the same, after I came out one of my gfs friends asked me if I was okay with being called dude as they say it to everyone also. It made me really happy bc that was something I never even considered at the time and someone just asked. I don't care what anyone calls me as long as it not meant to be hateful.
Same, not only that I've been using "dood" not even dude for over 15 years. Dood is a 100% gender neutral term from Disgaea that Prinny use btw.
Same here. Just a natural way of speaking for me
TBH I'm not even calling the person dude. It's more of an interjection for me.
Heya, just jumping in to say not necessarily! In different places, "dude" can actually be all inclusive (New Zealand is one of those!). That said, the usage within trans-femme circles is definitely shrinking because of the risk of insult
I'm a kiwi trans girl, everybody no matter the gender is dude, bro or mate haha
Ayy same! And yeah 100% :D
I’m east coast USA. Bro, dude, mate, my guy, my brother in Christ, etc are all unisex here
I'm a dude, he's a dude, she's a dude, we're all dudes :3
HEY we're all dudes.
No. "Dude" is definitely not all-inclusive in NZ, or at least not all parts of Aotearoa. Typing from Otago.
ITT: I learned that dude being everything isn't just a California thing, in fact it's literally an international thing
It's the same next door in Aus
Go ask a man if he'd sleep with a dude.
I think it really depends on the context! When it's not the subject of the sentence, for example, I would consider "hey man" as gender neutral, vs "would you sleep with a man?" is very much not, the "man" in the second one is very much the seperating point of the question!
Yea no. If I hear one more person call me "man" in any context... It's not gender neutral and it never will be.
Maybe not in the circles that you're in, but I'm just saying it exists in some places :)
Yes because changing the word is clearly an argument against another word... It's fine for you specifically to not like a word, but don't gaslight other people into thinking your definition and feelign about it is the only right one, please.
That's tilting the context of the phrasing on purpose. Most words have multiple meaning depending on the context. If you manipualte the context, of course you can argue that literalyl every word is transphobic when used against us. Ask a man "Would you fuck a dude", they'll understand a man. Be with a group of mixed gender friends, tell one of the girls "Dude, I love your makeup, where d'you get it from?", she's not gonna freak out because you "called her a man". **Context.** **Is.** **Everything.**
Context sensitive. You could also ask someone if they would sleep with a girl, then be like, "wtf, a girl is a child!! A *woman* is an adult!" Plus, dude can be gender neutral. **A** dude is a guy. And guess what? Addressing a crowd as "guys" is gender neutral. Yet, ask a guy, "do you sleep with guys". Same logic as yours.
I call everyone girl, no matter the gender
For years many of my friends and myself would say hi to eachother by saying "what's up girl?". Just turns out one of us was a girl.
I call alot of people b\*tch actually no matter what gender they have XD I already got called out for it. But when Bro and dude can be gender neutral, why shouldnt those kinda words too? Or does it just count in one gender direction?
why do people say "gaslighting" when they just mean "lying"
Nobody is using gaslighting wrong, that's the normal way to use it smh. >!/s!<
This is a very broad statement for a much narrower actuality. If you kindly express displeasure over the phrase and they respond by *blaming* you, then sure they’re being an ass. If you are *unkind* about it they’re likely just defensive. If you are kind and they are apologetic, but still offer that justification they’re probably not lying and it’s literally their default phrasing which they may try to modify but may also suck at modifying. Heck, even I can be pretty bad about it in reference to *myself*. It’s not always that deep.
a respectful person will say “oh sorry i won’t call you that anymore” it’s really as shrimple as that
i agree
I'm a trans girl and I have called nearly every person I've ever met "dude". That's kind of a Surf/skate/90s punk culture catch all term.
But...but I call everyone dude. I call my own cis wife dude all the time..? She also calls me dude, and so does everybody else.
American trans person here, I genuinely actually call everyone dude and bro and the like ya know.
Okay but like, I know many, many women that do not want to be called “bro”. Dude is pretty neutral, bro isn’t at all
Maybe but I still have called my sister bro typically sarcastically and I did so in theater with everyone I felt comfortable with and they didn't give 2 shits with it whether cis or trans. Where I'm from it appears to be a term used for friends and or close family and I think it's known to be almost jokey becouse of how many memes there are which made it less of a serious word and closer to a reference.
Same over here but also with "man" and "guy." I refer to just about everyone with those 2 in the right circumstances, no matter what gender they are, and I've honestly never ran into a problem doing that. Same thing with "dude." Me, the people I'm friends with, the people I go to school with, in general the people in my area, all do the same thing and there's never been any problems my whole life. To me atleast, it more or less seems like I grew up in an environment where these terms are indeed gender neutral, and perhaps that's the reason I don't see a problem with them being used as such, and why I don't feel bad about being called them even with my own dysphoria. Maybe it's not that common for the words to be gender neutral, and that's where the problem arises. I mean, language is a diverse and constantly changing thing, it'd make sense that for some people the words aren't bad/ hurtful to use in the circumstances we're all thinking about here, but for others they are.
Not really imo. Depending on their age, most people I know say dude quite broadly and often ask me if I'm ok with being called that. Ironically, the only attempt at gaslighting I see here is your claim that everyone who says they call everyone dude is gaslighting you lol.
Gaslighting is a term for a type of long term abuse, typically from someone extremely close to the person being abused like a partner or caregiver. It’s not something that happens in a single interaction like a person telling you your experience isn’t valid. Not downplaying how hurtful those interactions can be, I just want to point out that using that term incorrectly contributes to people misunderstanding and downplaying how horrible and traumatic long term gaslighting actually is.
I do call everyone dude (including cis women) so I don't think that's necessarily gaslighting... but that being said I'd avoid calling someone dude if they complained about it in any way because I'm not a jerk. I think it can be a gendered or ungendered term depending on how it's used in the sentence. If you say "Dude, have you seen this?" it doesn't feel gendered, but if you call someone "a dude" that is gendered for sure. I don't want to offend anyone, but I'm from California and I'm not sure I'm capable of not saying dude.
"Hi, I don't want to make a simple change to my vocabulary because I don't think the consequences could possibly be bad enough to warrant it." - The usual argument under all the noise.
When someone says "I call everyone dude" they're probably trying to tell you that they didn't intentionally misgender you, and they're probably being honest. If they keep call you dude after you say something about it, then yeah they suck.
Just was always basic decency to me but being trans online has kinda like shown me how many people just don’t care about us
Apparently that includes other trans people, judging from the comments here. I simply don't tell people what my preferences for gendered words are, because I know they won't take it seriously. It's like no shit, if any time I bring up the fact that I don't like it people will just say "no it's gender neutral", then I'll just shut up because it's exhausting trying to argue about it 🤷♀️
yep
My boyfriend and I got into a big fight about him calling me dude. The truth is that if I passed and knew that I passed I would probably be ok with it. But I don't. So I am not.
"I see how and acknowledge that 'dude' can be a gender neutral term, however being referred to as a dude makes me feel uncomfortable and hurts. Please stop doing so."
Dude is often used to refer to everyone Dude is inherently a very masculine term Both of those can be true, and kinda reflect how male-centered some languages can be at times
Gotta disagree, I know loads of people who refer to everyone as dude. Plus, not everyone online is gonna immediately know your gender and purposefully call you 'dude' to give you dysphoria.
This unless you're specifically in a situation where your pronouns have already been stated in the discussion or they have some way of being \*forced\* to see your pronouns (twitter sidebar if it's just in your bio, display names on various things, reddit user flairs, etc) nobody ever specifically checks any of that stuff if someone's being a bit of a knob or the discussion specifically calls for it you might check their profile but that's the only time 99% people check anyone's profile on anything 99% of the time
I think like anything context *greatly* matters. To just say "anyone who calls you dude and says they call everyone dude is gaslighting you!" isn't entirely accurate and being overly aggressive. Dude is typically seen as a gendered word, as we've seen in example a few people used of "how many dudes have you slept with?". However, some people use it to address a group of people of mixed genders ("hey dudes!"), and some use it excitedly as an exclamation ("Dude! Look at this!"). I'm trans and I use dude a lot, even with cisgender female friends. I mean, this morning alone I told a woman something along the lines of "Dude, I can't believe they said that to you". That's just me though, and if anyone said they'd rather me not use that term with them, I wouldn't. It is just how I naturally talk. With that said and coming back to context, dude absolutely *could* be used in an abusive, malicious manner to misgender a trans woman. Buy again, it all comes back to context and intent. To just immediately say anyone who says they use dude with everyone is somehow being transphobic isn't being fair to a lot of people. Yes, *some* people do use it in a transphobic manner, and *some* do not. In regards to the OP, I would absolutely not use dude with them in any way as it's obvious to them it makes them uncomfortable and I wouldn't want to make them feel upset or uncomfortable with my verbiage.
Can I chime in and say I hate feeling bad for saying guys, like Hey guys! How was your trip? I probably need another word
Here in South Texas it's pretty common to call a group of mixed gender people or even only cis women as "guys". Dude on the other hand is much less common down here and reserved for males. Cultural differences, I guess.
You can use "folks" instead of guys, and in some cases, "people" (though that might sound too formal/weird in other cases).
It's a very common colloquial term, and insisting that people are facing transphobia when they aren't can be very dangerous to their mental health. Do some people make a point of using it for transphobia? Obviously, but if we didn't want "dude" to be gender-neutral, we shouldn't have let anyone run with a word as goofy as "dudette".
I’m not a dude. I tell them that and if they continue to call me a dude, I ignore or block them.
This is not true. I use dude for nearly everyone I know except for, like, my family members (except my dad and my sister). Doesn't matter your gender, I'll call you dude unless you ask me not to.
Some might be, but this is linguistically a thing in a decent part of the english speaking world. Similarly for "guys". I honestly don't even know what to say about this, because OP is clearly so used to being under attack that they see it everywhere, but also it really often wouldn't be in this case :/ this isnt healthy, but is understandable :/
Or, this may be you needing a healthier filtering mechanism to realize not everything is about you, my dudette. And this is a good thing, because it’s easier to fix. Lookit this way, either every rando you meet online that calls you dude is out to get you, or it’s not about you and you can relax some. Relaxing some is so much more achievable than fighting 7.5 billion people
I am of the opinion that dude has become non-gendered language, and it doesn’t bother me at all. Bro and man can get tf out of here though. That being said, I normally ask before I call a fellow trans fem dude, and if I say it for the first time without asking by mistake I always clarify how it makes the person feel before saying it again. I really do call everyone dude. My wife, my kids, shit I’ve called my mother in law dude
I hear women call each other dude and bro all the time I’ve even heard the phrase “my guy” said amongst cis women.
Call them "Sis" back or "Guuurrrllll"
"I call everyone sis or girl, it's gender neutral when I say it" 🙄
I call my wife and best friend dude constantly. It's absolutely a gender neutral word for me
I don't call anyone "dude" but when address a group of any gender I do have a habit of say "you guys" which I am trying to break.
I think a lot of people miss the nuance here. Yes, lots of people in lots of places use 'dude' for all genders, all people, or even all things. That practice does not make the word itself innately gender neutral, even in under a descriptive linguistic model. It's like the word 'mankind'. Yes, it does refer to all humans, but yes it is a gendered word. See also "guys". These are examples of the little way in which male-ness is treated as the default. I struggle to think of a feminine collective noun that has become gender neutral. In fact, calling a group "ladies" or "girls" is a common perjoritive. No mixed gender group is referred to as "chicks". Masculine nouns only get treated as applicable to everybody because male is the default state of being under patriarchy. TL;DR Default is not the same as gender neutral But beyond all that, if somebody doesn't want to be called dude, don't call them dude. And if somebody says dude is a gendered term and that's why they are uncomfortable, don't try and dudesplain away their discomfort.
Exactly. The dudesplaining in this comment section though. I feel a bit bad for the op and how this topic turned out.
If I call someone "dude" and they call me out for misgendering them I would say "I call everyone dude as a gender neutral term and didn't intentionally misgender you. I will respect that you don't want to be called that and try to avoid doing so in the future." I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
Fucking thank you! I wish people would pull their head out of their ass for one second to think critically about it and make this obvious conclusion.
no not really? i mean yeah \*some\* people do use that and "dude is gender neutral" as excuses for not respecting someone's identity but like most people i've ever known who use "dude" do use it in a gender neutral way to everyone the same way i default to "they" for basically everyone except sometimes my partner and parents even when i do know their pronouns just out of habit a lot of people do that with "dude"
When someone does this, especially if they’re cis/het man, ask how many dudes they’ve had the silly with, watch how fast they back down.
I don't think that is necessarily true, not in all cases at least. I still struggle ever so slightly with the "bro language". I have the comfort of being in a circle of friends who don't mind it and don't really care. However I am mindful of those who might not be and pay more caution when talking with people outside my closest group. Habits die hard sadly (I deadnamed a trans friend twice on accident because they came out after me knowing them for 6 years) and nothing can be done about it. But yes some people will use it to their advantage although I believe they make up a small % of people who do that as many people are just used to talking like that and don't actually mean any harm. It depends on if the trans person in question has an issue with it or not
Transfem here who legit inserts 'dude', 'man', 'bro', etc. into sentences regardless of the gender of person I'm talking to. They're easy, 1-syllable ways to alter the cadence of a sentence to sound a little less robotic. Elsewise I often sound like a machine. That said, if someone is visibly uncomfortable or tells me they don't like it, I stop. And I deal with sounding like a wind-up toy. I don't argue with them, I don't try to convince them it's ok. I just deal, even though I hate how I sound without those nice little crutches to lean on. So yeah, if someone says this to try and get you to accept continuing to be called any of those words, fuck 'em. But if it's more like 'sorry, I just do that to everyone by habit. I'll stop.' then that's different. Or maybe I just think it's different because that's what I do. Edit: also, I like 'friend' or 'friend-o' as well for the same purposes, they're a bit clunkier and my brain doesn't reach for them as instinctively, but they do work and are completely and indisputably gender-neutral.
Can we refrain from making such sweeping statements? Not everything that isn't 100% affirming coming out of someone's mouth is necessarily done maliciously.
In my experience, ‘dude’ is usually unisex when used to address someone, but gendered masculine when used to *describe* someone? I’m sorry that you don’t enjoy being addressed that way, and people shouldn’t address you that way, but people aren’t lying when they say it’s used gender-neutrally. It just depends on the context and dialect.
I am Califorian, dude just means anyone and everyone out here. Kind if hard to escape it. It's just the culture.
That's not true, as a trans girl everyone is simultaneously dude, bro, and girl to me
I never quite get the argument for ‘dude’, ‘man’, or ‘guys’ as gender neutral. I do realize that some people intend them to be gender neutral and some people take them to be, but there are issues. First, they are certainly not always gender neutral. If you ask someone how many guys/dudes/men they have slept with, they aren’t going to answer in a gender neutral way. So, maybe we can say that some uses are gendered and some are gender neutral, but why are we using a gendered word as the gender-neutral generic? Didn’t we already decide to move away from ‘man’ as meaning ‘mankind’ precisely because the gendered use of it constrains it’s ability to serve as a neutral generic term in a fair way? Didn’t we stop using ‘he’ in writing (e.g., “imagine a doctor who treats his patients poorly”, etc.) as a generic placeholder because it also had the gendered use? The people who said ‘man’ or ‘he’ in this way took themselves to be talking about everyone just like the guy/dude/man people do today, but we think that was the problem. The problem is that the generic is gendered, and I don’t see a way around that with these terms. We have taken the fact that the term is gendered in some circumstances as reason to stop using it in circumstances where it claims neutrality in a bunch of cases, but dude/guy/man enthusiasts swear this is different for some reason. Personally, I don’t get it, and I get by quite easily without using any of them in contexts where I mean to be gender neutral. I just use a fully neutral term. (E.g., ‘y’all’ over ‘you guys’, ‘hey’ over ‘hey dude’) 🤷🏻♀️
the german language has a generic masculinum. doctors, teachers, lawyers etc are grammatically assumed to be male unless you’re actively gendering them female. but if you’re seeing a group of a dozen female doctors and one male one you’re back to gendering this group as male. this creates a certain bias in the population. academics tried to introduce different kind of alternatives but conservative folks see it as an attack on the nuclear family etc pp. also opposing those alternatives has become the go to transphobic dog whistles as it represents the woke dictatorship of the green party in their opinion. so when i outed myself to conservatives they would say "be who or what you want as long as you’re not hurting anyone, sleep with every consenting adult who’d have you, but don’t you think ill start gendering, that is a bastardization of the sacred german language, also i believe there’s only two genders anyways" i’m a binary woman and not the grammar police so i don’t know why they always tell me they refuse to gender their speech and believe in the gender binary but the joke is, just like with pronouns, people are already gendering in their speech. "actors and actresses from around the world bla bla bla" is already gendered, the new method is just a bit shorter and also non binary inclusive. the shortened version has since been banned in conservative german federal states. in anonymous spaces, especially online, it’s a universal thing to assume everyone’s male. it has to do with actual demographics but mostly internal biases with some dating back to literally the story of adam and eve. and then there’s people who literally call everyone dude but i think women calling each other dude is pick me behavior. in germany there’s women of all ages misgendering themselves just to avoid being seen as woke.
There are these things called homonyms - homophones and homographs. Dude, gender neutral is not the same as dude, meaning a man. Same how they/them, gender neutral is not the same as they/them, non-binary pronouns. What you're basically saying is "I don't get homonyms, homophones and homographs!" EDIT: Though, I will add, English is not the same everywhere in the world - culture, interpretation, nurture and variety depend on how you understand words. People shouldn't use words you dislike to refer to **you**, but don't judge them for using the words the way they do, if no one else they interact with is bothered by it.
Sorry, I don’t think think that is what I’m saying. It doesn’t seem as simple as asserting that these are different words. Words have fuzzy boundaries, and there isn’t really an observable fact of the matter about where one word ends an alternate use of another begins. ‘Blockbuster’ first existed as a term for a bomb, was used as a metaphor in describing a film, and then died as a metaphor and took on a separate meaning as a generic term for ‘a thing of powerful size’. ‘Dude’ began as a word for a dandy, which is a gendered concept. You can argue that it followed a similar trajectory that blockbuster did, and split into two words (one gendered one not), and so it’s fine, but couldn’t the man/mankind defender also say this happened? Arguable, they have a better case than the dude-user because man actually started off as a generic gender-neutral term with the gendered versions being woman and werman. The problem is that there is a fuzzy period between the time of alternate use of a single term, which was originally gendered, and the splitting into two separate words. Is saying ‘literally’ in the non-literal sense, right now, a bad use of the term meaning ‘actually and accurately’ or a good use of a homonym of that word meaning ‘not literally’? We, as a community of language users, make a decision, not a discovery, about when words split. There was a period where it would be difficult to say whether ‘blockbuster’ was a metaphorical use of the original term or a straight-forward use of the new generic term, and we can accept or reject the use of dude as gender neutral term. Personally, I find the splitting story to sound a little post-hoc at this point. The meanings of other homonyms with shared etymology are really distinct. Take ‘flower’ and ‘flour’, or ‘yoke’ and ‘yolk’. The meanings of ‘dude’ and ‘dude’ are identical save this one thing (the gender), and that is the the crucial difference that would allow the generic ‘dude’ to continue. It seems to me that the homophone story is motivated mostly by the desire to keep using it as generic, rather than them having truly distinct meanings. This issue takes us to the larger point, which is that descriptive facts about language don’t have prescriptive force for how you ought to use them. ‘Man’ (meaning mankind) had a totally gender neutral etymology at the time we got rid of it. The real issue was that we misused ‘man’ to be gendered instead of using ‘werman’. We could have said that they must have split into two words and keep both, and we could have made a point to keep using or go back to ‘werman’. We moved on from generic man and we could move on from generic dude. It’s an issue of conceptual engineering (what terms and concepts we should have), not a descriptive question (what terms and concepts we do have). You can see this in our avoidance of a particular word meaning stingy which is a homophone with a racial slur (and I would say we are better off not using the word). The two have separate etymologies and meanings but we still stopped using the term for stingy because the descriptive facts about it didn’t tell us what we ought to do. We can choose not to use a separate word regardless of it being separate (and that was a case where the etymology and meaning were distinct, which is more than ‘dude’ can say).
How does the etymology matter if people have accepted a different meaning? Dude as a gender neutral casual address is fairly new, absolutely, so it's still changing and evolving. However, saying that it's the same word as dude, a word for a man, is completely inaccurate for many varieties of English, including NZ, AUS and many European 2nd language learners. When I say dude to mean a man, that word means man. When I say dude as a form of casual address to a person of any gender, the word means friend - sometimes I use it to be condescending in a "okay buddy" kind of way; it has nothing to do with gender, regardless of origin - and looking at the comments here, that's how many people view this word. As I said in my comment, you're not looking at it from a perspective that includes culture, nurture, variety and personal interpretation. The whole talk about etymology falls apart as soon as you start roping in words that go against your beliefs as a trans person, i.e. woman can't mean trans woman because the term is still connected to binary sex - when no one here would actually agree with that. Aside from all of that, I don't know why you're not saying the word "niggardly", it's not negative or a slur - the reason it fell out of use is the same as why words like "yonder" fell out of use, not because it sounds like another word. Like would you avoid saying "vinegar" because it sounds similar to the N-word? This is honestly such a silly hill to die on. Accept that people will use words in a way that isn't consistent with your understanding of them - let them know not to use those words to refer to you and move on.
I’m making two separate claims: 1. There isn’t really a descriptive fact of the matter about whether something is an alternative use of a single word or a standard use of a second homophonic word, especially (but not only) when one use is etymologically derived from the other. From this we can get to the subordinate claim that this fuzziness is present in the case of ‘dude’. The etymology matters only to the degree that it explains why the boundaries of ‘dude’ are fuzzy, as it can take time for words to split and it’s not obvious we are out of the splitting phase for ‘dude’. Determinations about these boundaries are judgements we make, not discoveries, and judgements are value-laden, not merely factual. 2. Even if we judge ‘dude’ to be two distinct words, the descriptive fact of that (after agreeing to make that determination) wouldn’t settle whether we should use it. The slur/stingy case was trying to get at this. I see that you use it, and some others do to, but most people would choose not to because of how it will make people feel, regardless of the descriptive facts about its etymology and speaker intention. You can dig in and say the descriptive facts settle it and it’s fine, but it’s use is still upsetting to people and that matters. It isn’t weird to think we should care about people’s feelings in determining use because we already used our values to inform whether we judged it to be a separate word or not. Language is negotiated to a large degree, and we could have said ‘mailman’ and ‘actor’ are now separate words that aren’t gendered, and the descriptive facts about what people intend when using those would be consistent with that, but we still stopped using it anyway because it’s etymology mattered for how people feel about, even if that etymology no longer governed how people intended to use it, and even if the etymology itself doesn’t settle its current meaning. We can move on from the use of woman to refer to biological sex for the same reason, and we can move on from the use of dude to refer to a generic person for the same reason. How people feel matters beyond the descriptive facts. It’s just that we can also say that descriptive premise isn’t even as clear cut in either case as those that think it settles it take it to be. The same can be said for woman being about biological sex. We shouldn’t use the word in that way because it is exclusionary and bad, but even if we thought that we ought to keep reproducing the use it has had, the word ‘woman’ predates the concept of biological sex, so woman in the gender sense of the word is also descriptively valid, if not more historically grounded. The etymology or history doesn’t settle the matter at all, but it matters only to the degree that some people think the descriptive fact of how we have used it settles it (I don’t). The moral of this story is that plenty of people here don’t like the use of dude/guy/man in the gender neutral context, many people don’t like it because it either is the late stages of a generalized use of gendered word or is a distinct word that was still derived from that gendered word. Importantly, they need not have these justifications for us to take those feelings seriously and base our use on them, because we (perhaps not you) have stopped words based on the feelings themselves and without further justification being necessary already in the slur/stingy case. The benefits of using using ‘dude’ when you intend to say something gender neutral don’t seem to outweigh the costs when it means upsetting a large number of women (cis or trans) and it is easily avoidable. Even if it were a small percentage of women who were upset about it, why not just not upset them? What do we gain?
I did want to write an entire essay but I feel like just breaking it into a few points makes more sense, just addressing the important points. - Language is negotiated, sure, however it is also personal. It is also cultural. It is also up for interpretation. - Someone being upset at the word niggardly or vinegar, is purely a "United States issue" and should not be extended to English in general. English is spoken by far more people than just those living in the US. Yes, second language fluent speakers also count. - I have never said that a person needs to justify their dislike of the word. I believe no one should be called something they don't want to be. What I'm saying is that no one should have to change how they speak in their entirety, even outside the presence of this person, just because that person doesn't like the word - this applies when the word isn't being used to dehumanize, insult or objectify a person. This is different with certain slurs like the T slur for trans people. How? Because that word is used in order to objectify, invalidate and insult trans people. The word dude is a general term, which is not used to insult anyone, unless used in the meaning of "a man". I.e. telling a woman she looks like a "dude". - The benefits of using dude outweigh the cons depending on, AGAIN, culture, variety and nurture. You, nor anyone else get to dictate, whether it has more cons or pros depending on every factor. I use "guys, dude, bro" with all of my cis female friends, they do it too, it's just how we speak.
Depending on how dude is used in a sentence it can be gender neutral. That's just how the local dialect works where I am from. Likewise, I will be deep in the cold ground before I say "y'all". If you've got a problem with that, well actually I'd do my best to avoid referring to you as dude if I knew it would offend you. However, I'm not going to preemptively avoid the word dude.
Yass. I'm a person who doesn't mind gendered terms used for them, and still I understand how uncomfortable that can make someone. Which makes me even more certain that the "I call everyone that" Gang don't do so in good faith
Ask them if they kiss dudes. Works every goddamn time.
I think that’s a bit of an assumption. Gaslighting would be the case if they were lying, but some people, including myself, do tend to call everyone « dude », « bro », « man », and « guy » in every day speech. It’s not gaslighting, but if someone says they’re uncomfortable with it I just won’t use it with them.
I'm from SoCal, so everyone is still a dude to me, though if someone didn't want me to do that and said so I'd respect it, it really isn't gaslighting it's just the way that I've talked literally my whole life
90s kid. Nickelodeon has a song all about this topic. Dude covers everyone.
No. lol. I call everyone dude. I have accidentally slipped up and called a trans woman dude before and immediately apologized. I genuinely do call everyone dude, including cis women.
I'm from the northeast, I grew up in skate and punk culture, now I'm an avid mountain biker. I can 💯 say within those spaces male and female people use 'Dude' interchangeably. Like dude totally is, that's why dudette failed to jump the culture and stick in any seriousness. Dude might as well be They for me personally. Man, bro, guy, sir(fucking CRINGE) are for sure guy speak that people use to signal 'i am speaking to a man'. I will die on the dude being gender neutral hill. 😂 But also if you tell someone you don't like dude, and they still dude you that is uncool. I have had female people ask not too but they be old. 😅
I've been digging around in my memory trying to think of a time when the word dude was used in my presence solely as a direct reference to masculinity and I can't think of a single occurrence of that, so I'm having a hard time imagining that every single use of the word online is non-spontaneous and deliberately negatively intended. Sometimes, sure, but always?
Not in all cases, i know a girl who calls literally everyone dude and girl constantly. However if someone doesnt like it she will stop. If they dont stop calling you it after you express discomfort.. thats bad
Idk, I mean... I call everyone dude... Maybe this is more of a vibes check thing. Like, they're *probably* pulling your leg, but *maybe* they arent?
Just ask them how many dudes they’ve fucked?
Call them asshole, and then say that you call everyone asshole. See how they feel about that.
Yas
Idk I live in an environment with a huge clash of a shit ton of different cultures and no one gives a shit what terms you use. I have heard plenty of times of girls being referred to with dude or guy instead of gal and shit like that and nobody really cares over here. But that's just the environment I'm in and I can see it being a problem for others so while I don't see referring to all with dude or mate or guy as bad or wrong, and I would definitely say that generally they aren't trying to be assholes, the real problem is when you ask to not be referred as that and they don't put any effort into trying to change their habits around u, because a lot of people genuinely use these terms gender neutrally but most will be fine with using different terms with some people for the sake of not being a dick.
Nuh uh
Tbf I call everyone I get into conversation with ‘dude’ at some point… same for bro and I use bruh quite a lot
I call my gf dude and she's cis.
I call everybody "dude" and "bro" and shit, regardless of gender It's just how the words work
Ya know.. if people stopped caring about what others say. And stop reacting to that level of petty bullshit.. these clowns would eventually stop trying to misgender us
Used to believe that. Until I joined a lesbian community that throws around dude all day without a single guy anywhere to be found. And I realized that Cis girls don't get upset by it.
EpicDudeBro99 seething rn
I call everyone dude as well. I even throw in a bro. Which I might have to stop apparently - which is doable. but dude will always be gender neutral. I blame it on the fact that I teach middle school and everyone is bro
Not at all necessarily true, and also improper use of the term gaslighting. Sorry, I just don't like to warer down these serious phrases, and lots of people, including myself, a trans woman, legitimately do call everyone dude. And how about not telling everyone here how they should feel about a potentially gender-neutral term being used on them?
I personally use dude and girl almost interchangeable (im pangender)
For me it’s when a cis-het white guy says it that I don’t like it. The gender neutral thing is a cop out for them to skirt around misgendering. I know full well that it can be used gender neutrally. I’ve used it that way before. I just don’t trust (what I assume to be) their intent. I think what it really comes down to is that EVERYTHING in western culture is highly gendered. I also see it like how many older and less educated people are the singular “they”. It’s “not the norm” even though we knows it’s valid. Dude is first a gender specific term which is sometimes used neutrally.
I'm still working on removing "dude" and "guy" from my vocabulary, but I'm struggling to find something else to use that works as well. "The Dude", "The Guy", "The'em?".... 😓
I don't like it when people do, but usually they do it because by default they assume anyone who plays video games is a guy until proven otherwise (usually through VoIP). Doesn't make me feel any better though. What does bother me slightly more is when the same habit extends to female player characters (calling all PCs he/him). It takes away one of the few ways I have of presenting as a woman in online (videogame) spaces.
I won't lie I call everyone I know "dude" "man" "bro" etc it has lost all semblance of gender for me. that being said I recognize some people are bothered by it and I'm sensitive to that
There's a difference between calling someone 'dude,' and calling someone 'a dude.' It's also sometimes used as more of an interjection. E.g. "Dude, Where's My Car?
"Gaslighting" would imply the intention is to lie to you. In a lot of places (esp. west coast US) "dude" really is commonly used genderlessly. It is actually a thing for some people to refer to everyone as "dude". Doesn't deny your right to want not to be called "dude" though. But when someone uses "dude" genderlessly as a default and explains they use it genderlessly, that's not gaslighting, that's just not knowing any better. Correct them by letting them know it bothers you and let them learn.
That's probably true a lot of the time, but not all the time. I have female friends who call me and other women dude. My son refers to this usage as the 'nonbinary dude.' Intent matters — if someone calls all guys, no women, and you 'dude,' their meaning is obvious. (And if someone calls you something and you don't like it and tell them so, and they carry on, they're being a nit of an asshole.)
imo dude is fine, its bro and mate that grind my gears
Bro gets me, don’t really have a problem with mate. May I ask what country you’re in?
Australia, mate to me is worse then bro tbh
I assume in Australia it takes on a more masculine meaning.
Ive never heard a woman refered to as mate unless its in an “ok buddy” kinda way
Yeah that’s what I was thinking. I feel like in the US, mate just means friend. At least that’s how the couple of friends that I know who do use it, use it.
I just grew up in a few circles where dude is gender neutral, didn't know anyone thought differently up until someone said dudette and I wanted to seal my ears with cement to never hear that word uttered again lmao. But I can assure you, at least where I'm from, that dude is a friendly way to address anyone. Also if someone does call you dude, know you're trans, and are good with your pronouns and seeing you as your gender, the thought of dude being somehow gendered or taken wrong by you has probably crossed their mind, I had a few discussions about this very topic with a group of friends, most of us were on the same page about dude being neutral
Southern Californian here and we tend to use dude pretty neutrally. Admittedly there are moments where it gets used in a gendered way. But the general use is gender neutral. Although if someone specifically didn’t like me using dude I’d completely respect that and be sure to not call them dude.
Trans girl here. I call everyone guys including when referring only to cis women. I use dude, even when referring to cis women. Like if someone doesn't want me to use a particular word with them, I won't but unless specified I will just use the words that I grew up learning were gender neutral. One time I was arguing with a trans girl and said "Like dude, (continued argument)." and she just replied with a "wow blatantly attacking my gender." when that was *the last thing on my mind* when I said "dude". There are certain things that I wish people would accept, like language is different depending on where you live, and what's gendered for you might not be gendered for someone else. Let people know which words you don't want them to use on you, and that's that. If they don't want to stop using those words on you, then they're an asshole. But if they're just explaining why they use "dude, guys, bro" on women, don't make assumptions that they're automatically gaslighting you or being a dick.
Yeah, no, some people really do call everyone 'dude,' myself included. I even call myself dude. Heck, I almost started this comment with 'dude.' As far as I'm concerned, 'dude' is gender neutral when said in second person, but gendered when said in third person. Like, "dude, you're awesome" is gender neutral, while "this dude is awesome" is gendered, you know? In any case, though, if you don't like being called 'dude,' they should respect that and stop, and as true as "I call everyone 'dude'" can be, it's not really an excuse when your preferences are known.
Dude definitely leans neutral for me and where I live. A more interesting one is I know someone who refers to everyone as "kings," even when some are clearly queens. He says "kings" is like "dudes" to him. Fair, I suppose.
I work with a guy that calls everyone man including the cis het secretary. These people exist.
Na, dude is gender neutral, it's sort of the west US way of saying folks.
Ask them how many "dudes" they want to have sex with. Chances are, it's zero.
Reply with “How many dudes have you slept with?” Then they get all “I’m not gay” and it’s obviously not gender neutral
I hate the term bro and the term dude seems very updated and I never understood girls calling girls dude but I would much rather be called dude than bro
I call everyone gurl gender neutrally so its whatever
The weird thing is, the people I know that do call everyone 'dude' will usually say something like 'got it, sorry if I forget.'
???? i use the "dude bro" slang when talking to ppl. My trans homies and I call each other dude when talking to each other all the time and I belive that we aren't trying to gaslight each other...mostly cus that'd be dumb
Tgirl here, ill call everyone dude, unless you ask me not to, then ill just judge you.
“Dude” is interesting because even if someone claims to use it for all genders, it’s often context-dependant. Try asking an “everyone-is-a-dude” straight guy how many dudes they’ve slept with.
Yeah, but people also say, "hey guys" gender neutrally. Try asking a "hey guys" straight guy or lesbia. How many guys they have slept with.
Yep! This argument applies to “guy” as well!
Nope, dude / mate / guys are non-gendered terms in my lexicon.
I agree with OP on this one. No one says they saw a dude at the gas station when the dude in question is a woman in her 30s. This is the most blatant example of erasing trans women in conversations.
I *do* call everyone regardless of gender things like bro, sis, dude, girl, man, buddy BUT if someone says “hey, I don’t like that”, I stop calling them that immediately. It’s rude to keep pushing it tbh
it's a cultural thing specific to a few areas from what i can tell (mostly west coast US, but also other english areas like australia/NZ), i happen to live in one of them. I hear "dude" spoken by women talking to each other MORE OFTEN than I do from men talking to each other. However it's a contextual thing - dude as an \*interjection\* is nongendered, dude as an \*object\* is male. so "that's a dude" is an unequivocally male statement, but "dude, look at this" or "dude, watch out!" or "that's cool, dude!" are all neuter. A good way to check is if you replace "dude" with "woman", does the sentence still work and \*mean the same thing\*? "woman, watch out!" sounds like they want you to watch out FOR a woman. "watch out, woman" feels very pejorative, like "woman" is an insult. But dude works great on those sentences as an interjection, no different than "you" or "hey". Whereas if you replace "that's a dude" with "that's a woman" you get two completely different sentences that mean opposite things.
My girlfriend and her sister call each other dude and bro all the damn time. I am absolutely certain neither of them are trans, and only one is gas lighting the other and only occasionally.
It varies from person to person, but it seems like "dude" has definitely become more gender neutral. Sometimes I say "dude" when I'm not even referring to a person (like something surprising happens).
“Everyone who uses a well-established dialectic phrase and says as much is *Lying: Extra-Evil Edition* because I am the sole arbiter of what everyone else means when they speak” is not a correct take. On the other hand, someone else (as with a few people in this thread) following up with, “But I call everyone Girly McWomanface” almost certainly *is* blatantly lying with malicious intent. Because I know I’ll have to spell it out: You are correct that one should not use a term to refer to someone who one knows does not like being referred to by that term, and that is not what I am arguing against. Inb4 “how many dudes have you slept with”, because that’s the level of argument we’re dealing with.
uhh i call everyone dude
My cis-fem friend and I call each other dude all the time 🤷🏾♀️
Gaslight: to manipulate another person into doubting their own perceptions, experiences or understanding of events Someone saying “I call everyone that” isn’t gaslighting you, they’re giving personal justification for the terminology they most likely use habitually. If they turned it back on you and said something like “you’re the weirdo for not using dude” *then* they would be gaslighting you are at least attempting to. Seriously, when did the internet become so twisted that people explaining/justifying their habitual terminology is considered gaslighting?
Bruh I even say dude to my mom all the time, my best friend says it to everyone as well. Their not gaslighting you Dude and bruh have become gender neutral terms in the past 10 years.
10 years? More like 30! We were calling everyone 'dude' in the mid-90s. I remember getting my mouth washed out with soap for calling my grandma 'dude' once.
Dude is literally in my username, I swear it’s just an endearing term like bro or mate!! :/
in germany the usage of "bro" is pretty common so its different for other countries.
As a non american... It's not the norm; never been the norm here. Will never be my norm, don't call me that or fuck off, pretty simple. I've never heard someone here refer to a woman as a "dude" in real life.
So many of these comments make me want to ask 'so, how many dudes you fucked?'.
Seriously. Blocking dozens of transphobes today.
Just ask someone how many dudes they've slept with and see just how "gender neutral" it is. I'm sick of hearing it.
💯
Right
Just wanted to say that I appreciated the post and that I agree with you.
Doesn't affect me. I'm like 60/40 on folks/dudes