196

If someone were to take offense to me calling them dude I would absolutely make every effort to stop the behavior. I would never want anyone to feel invalidated over something like that.

That being said I feel like this whole outrage is manufactured to rile people up. I highly doubt many people are getting worked up over it. Dude has very much become a gender neutral term and is even now just used as an exclamation. I'd be willing to bet a large portion, if not the large majority, of the trans community doesn't give a fuck about the term and they probably use it themselves.

Maybe I'm part of the problem, but in my day-to-day life, I even hear women calling each other "dude" all the time, and it seems like it's become a non-gendered term.

Even the Wikipedia article says this:

By the late 20th to early 21st century, dude had gained the ability to be used in the form of expression, whether that be disappointment, excitement, or loving and it also widened to be able to refer to any general person no matter race, sex, or culture.

Fragile ego. Become truly indifferent to pronouns to destroy all gender roles and eliminate the ability for anyone to be transphobic by normalizing any self expression for any person.

Dude will evolve to become a personality archetype moreso than a gender-associated noun.

I'm trans and have spent many years in trans spaces and this is the first I've heard of "dude" being problematic. Maybe it's a regional dialect thing? I did once have a colleague ask me to stop referring to our group as "guys," tho, I switched it to "team" instead.

My dude, dude is used as a gender neutral term

This complaint doesn't even makes sense because you would always be using it as a noun, not a pronoun

That's actually the way I talk to everyone naturally. That being said, if someone asked me not to call them a specific kind of way I'd respect that.

While I consider dude a gender neutral term, if someone asked me to stop calling them dude, I would, as it is respectful to them.

But seriously, no offense meant at all. As someone who grew up "in the time period" in southern California the term "dude" is inescapable, regardless of gender. Trying to remove that from my vocabulary would be akin to removing "whoa" or "wow"... (I have zero issues with pronoun preferences)

If the image reference is missed, please give The Big Lebowski a view. It's not necessarily for everyone but it's such a gem.

Is this bait?

I call my wife bro and dude constantly.

But obviously if someone doesn't want to be called dude or bro they can let me know and I'll gladly change my terms when dealing with them.

It's fair if you want to not be called dude, it's also fair that a lot people will fuck it up the first time

I agree, it’s nice to ask somebody about their boundaries, and it can really make them feel more comfortable.

However, I do consider it the other person’s responsibility to establish the boundaries and uphold them; if I call them something they dislike, I’d hope they’d feel comfortable enough to tell me (in a kind way). That’s the kind of friendship I’d want anyways. And if I purposefully ignore that request or argue it, I think it’s very fair for that person to be more stern in communicating their boundary. In this case, “I don’t care that you use it as gender-neutral, I don’t want to be called ‘dude’.”

Good friends/people would respect your wishes, though. It’s your identity, at the end of the day.

This place really is turning into Reddit 2.0

I call everyone Choom.

Good job getting some nasty assholes to out themselves and get blocked...

Here's a news flash: if you pride yourself on refusing to show basic respect to other people - you're not brave or rebellious or special, you're just a piece of shit (and specifically in this case upholding the status quo and actively participating in its systems of oppression) it's as simple as that. ¯\(ツ)/¯

I tend to only call guys dude, unless it’s more of a “dude what is going on” where “dude” isn’t actually referencing anyone in particular.

That said, I do say “guys” a lot for an all inclusive grouping.

Thought… I’m not really going to ask random people what they want me to refer to them as, and I’m also not going to start assuming I know who is trans/non binary. I don’t really want people asking me, either. Take a guess, if you guess wrong I’ll let you know. And I’d hope for the same from others.

The only time I’d really take offense is the second time, since that shows a clear disregard for my preferences. Well, disregard or malice.

This thread is a good example of how disrespect can snowball as all parties involved get more and more defensive