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I have a brit friend. Rough guy and personal security specialist (ex military). His funniest quirk to me is how he will use "honey" and especially "sweetheart" with anyone, regardless of gender and with absolutely no malice.
EDIT: LOL, this was meant as a response to a comment I can't even find now. Sorry, didn't mean to reply to main.
One of the best feelings is saying "What's up dude/man/bro" to some one who's recently transitioned to male.
I call women dude all the time, its become so gender neutral nowadays.
It's not to everyone. Especially online, where people from all over the world meet.
It's so forced that we're kind've getting used to it. Tell people that think it's gender neutral to "have sex with dudes" and see how they react.
It's always just been about stubbornness and the unwillingness to change, despite being extremely contextual, at best. Force the overall culture before changing a shitty perspective of seeing your trans friend as masculine person that fits into your group of guys. It's really toxic, selfish, and manipulative imo. And because boys are hot and I'm dumb and weak, I excuse it sometimes, but I really shouldn't, we should all know better.
Awww!! Thanks! ☺️
Me being transfem and suddenly using these more often because my brain hurts and my boobs hurt 😭
My pre-teen daughter calls me "girl" all the time. Like something "what you mean, girl?"
My favorite though, is taking all their slang words and using them. They hate it.
I use them so much, to me theyre gender neutral terms.
doesn't matter if it isn't to whoever you are referring to.
I've done this a few times, and I hear myself doing it and alarm bells go off, and I can see them trying not to react to it, and then I try to overcompensate by using it more and more to prove how gender-neutral I consider it, but I think I eventually end up digging a hole and squatting in it. 😢
Soooo much appreciation for this 🩷 I think I'll forever mentally twitch when people use dude, man, mate, bro, etc. towards me. I totally know it's done in a gender neutral way, but I still feel a small pang in my heart.
How's Homie sit with you? (I think Homie is a great gender neutral term!)
Using a validating, non vaguely-male term is great, though!
Most of the terms are like: "these are MALE terms and also girls can be 'one of the bros' in certain circumstances"... but that's just not what transition is about.
We don't want to be "just one of the bros"; you gotta understand that:
a) that's NOT what a lot of us after,
b) the world doesn't revolve around men and being men and being masculine (and perpetuating that male chauvinism perspective is shitty),
and c) it's okay to call girls, girls, and to be a woman. That isn't a negative or lesser or othering l thing, despite how much of society raises us to believe.
I'm also not saying that we don't want to be included wherever we feel comfortable fitting in, we absolutely do. And I think a lot of allies understand that. But just as many allies understand that trans women feel left out from being included in feminine spaces, as well. And sometimes, while we may fit in better with the bros, way more than the girls, that itself can feel awful and really get the dysphoria going. Sometimes though, some of us realize that the dudes that are bros we realize are hot and dumb and we want to be closer to them for... different reasons.
Personally, I'm poly and pan and just want everybody to get along and not have weird stereotypically forced gender segregated hobbies, interests, and cliques anymore because that's weird and uncomfy. I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore I haven't eaten today yet. Homie is fine, I guess, but borderline, personally. I don't know a better replacement.
There is a single person in the world I call Bro, and it's my actual brother, who is transmasc.
I still think guy/dude is gender neutral. Call it the Good Burger principle:
“I’m a dude, he’s a dude, she’s a dude, we’re all dudes… HEY!”
doesn't matter if it isn't to whoever you are referring to
Yeah I agree. At the end of the day I’m not going to disrespect someone by calling them something they don’t want to be called
My closest gender neutral family member likes dude, if you're in doubt just ask, they'll appreciate it
Yeah I mean, I’m not calling someone dude or guy intentionally if they don’t like it. That’s just being polite.
Yeah I use all those in gender neutral ways. "Man" can start a sentence and not be directed at anyone.
Dunno, I use "dudette" pretty frequently with my girl friends (and I don't mean Egg Carriers™, nor do I have something better than "girl friends" - initially wanted to go for "chick pals" as a snappy equivalent, then I started feeling like That One Creepy Uncle). Actually use "dudette" more than I do "dude," it has a nicer sound to it.
As I see it, "dude" is gender neutral when used as an interjection, same as "man" and "guy."
Me but like with everybody despite my very grown up job and wife
Bruh is just so fun to say okay?
I started to say “that’s a bruh moment” instead of genuinely committing to the “bruh” and it’s made a small difference
What I did was a mental find+replace. Find 'bro,' replace with 'friend.'
Yeah I'm terrible at this. Almost put man in this sentance twice. I don't stop myself unless explicitly asked as it would be quite patronizing to treat them like they're somehow different than all the other women I call man or my guy however but when asked it's hard to stop. I do my best though
Your thought process makes sense and your effort to change when asked is appreciated =)
I do my best though
That's all anyone can ask for really! Mistakes happen, I even misgender myself sometimes
Changing behavior, and behavior in language, especially when you have a connection to it from your youth, is really, really hard.
I've been transitioning for over a decade, and I still say dude and man and stuff. Verbally and in text.
I know better, it's just so ingrained in my online wannabe 90s/00s attitude/culture from growing up.
Which is why the outward and vocal resistance to memes trying to change the behaviors and standards is so irritating to me. It isn't gender neutral, and only exceptions to the rule exist. Maybe if you acquired the terms/phrases in gender neutral contexts is it actually okay, but then THAT conflict of honest perspectives is a different subject, akin to using words like queer, and how they differ between generations.
Like when I was really young, saying things were gay was just a part of language. Teachers would get mad and tell us not to say it, but like... We didn't hate gay people, we were just ignorant, and thought it was fun trendy language. And I see a lot of that and stuff like that in a lot of people still today. Did using gay just as a synonym for "bad" closet-ify a lot of people? Looking back, ABSOLUTELY, myself included. But I want to believe that most other people ALSO were too ignorant to be knowingly malicious about it and just got caught in a shitty culture, and thankfully that culture has changed today (for most people, I still occasionally run across a dinosaur still calling everything gay and it's quite a sight to behold, they look straight out of saved by the bell, but 30 years passed and they never stopped smoking).