this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
193 points (78.0% liked)

Asklemmy

45191 readers
882 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

So I've realized that in conversations I'll use traditional terms for men as general terms for all genders, both singularly and for groups. I always mean it well, but I've been thinking that it's not as inclusive to women/trans people.

For example I would say:

"What's up guys?" "How's it going man?" "Good job, my dude!โ€ etc.

Replacing these terms with person, people, etc sounds awkward. Y'all works but sounds very southern US (nowhere near where I am located) so it sounds out of place.

So what are some better options?

Edit: thanks for all the answers peoples, I appreciate the honest ones and some of the funny ones.

The simplest approach is to just drop the usage of guys, man, etc. Folks for groups and mate for singular appeal to me when I do want to add one in between friends.

(page 8) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago
[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Dudes is fine - folks and yall also work. I use yall all the time even though I'm now in Canada and have never lived in the US south.

Guys, I think, is still a bit too gender associated but it's borderline. Man is often used in a gender neutral manner but it is very easy to misinterpret and a transwoman could reasonably assume you're trying to troll them.

You've also got fella and feller, I think the latter one is more gender neutral than the former.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

What I use is y'all or folks for plural, and dude for singular.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Esteemed personages.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I've never had an issue with y'all and "dude/dudes" in gender neutral ways. They're the natural words I grew up with. On rare occasions, somebody doesn't prefer "dude" and I'll use different terms for them and around them.

In professional settings such as work email, I tend to use the more formal gender-neutral terms like "people" and "everybody" and "they/them", but I'm also in a region where "y'all" is accepted in formal conversation, so I often use that.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I'm just going out on a limb to remind people it's totally ok to say sup man to legit anyone. People that care about that stuff are people you can choose to change it for if you want to be around that type of person.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I typically go with something like, "howdy, folks".

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I worked at a restaurant in Ohio in the early 2000s. Had a group of ladies come in once, probably in their 50s. Got super offended when I gave the standard "hi guys!" greeting. However, where I grew up, that had become a gender neutral greeting.

If you want to remove gendered pronouns entirely, "y'all" is what I would go with. I think the UK frequently uses "you lot", but that probably does not sound great to most in the US. I suppose "folks" is one that might work, but seems to rub some people the wrong way.

[โ€“] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

Why are you trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist? Linguistics don't care about genders in biological sense.

[โ€“] [email protected] -1 points 11 months ago

Both my partner and I use "dude" interchangeably for all genders. They're NB for context

[โ€“] [email protected] -1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (6 children)

Fellas

edit: please correct me if you believe I am wrong, I am open to discussion.

load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments
view more: โ€น prev next โ€บ