Asklemmy

43952 readers

1052 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

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

Open-ended question
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.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

190

What is a gender neutral replacement for man, guys, buddy, etc? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

413 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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!” 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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] danhakimi@kbin.social 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

wait, is "buddy" gendered?

I like to mix it up. but language is context dependent. "buddy" is a go-to of mine, and feels entirely gender neutral.

"my people" is good for plural.

"friend" is good as long as you have the right rhythm with it. Like, you know, in the second person, like "hello, friend."

"bro" obviously doesn't work, but I have casually referred to trans friends as "broham" and they didn't seem to mind. I don't do it often, but sometimes mixing in a good bro pun is more fun that way... go a little over the top, call somebody brobrahk brobrahma, nobody's going to be thinking that you're implying gender, it's an equally ridiculous term to call anybody by. Similarly, although context dependent, there are implicitly feminine words you can use, although some of them can be degrading in the wrong context. "Gurl," "bitch," and "slut" can work, as long as it's ridiculous enough in context not to be taken seriously. I'm a guy, I've had friends call me these. "Gurl" might not be the best for a nonbinary friend or a trans man friend, so be careful with it.

I don't know, I only have a few nonbinary friends, I guess, and I mostly refer to most of them by their names.