Asklemmy

43965 readers

1318 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

193

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

414 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

[–] nadiaraven@lemmy.world 17 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Trans women sometimes feel uncomfortable when they are called dude, so if you're aiming for maximum comfort of people, dude is not a great choice.

[–] dandroid@sh.itjust.works 17 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Well, to make a more serious comment instead of just quoting an old song from an old movie, it's definitely most important to call people by pronouns that they prefer. That's the number 1 priority.

That said, I have some trans friends who don't like gender neutral pronouns in general. One in particular has explained how much she has gone through to be able to identify as a woman, and using "they" instead of "she" makes her feel like she still isn't a woman.

So the real answer is there's no one word that will make everyone happy. They best way to do that is to ask people the pronouns they prefer.

[–] redempt@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago

the best take. as with everything, there is no one size fits all solution

[–] MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 5 points 8 months ago

I never though about that aspect of it, thanks for sharing that friend's perspective.