What is a gender neutral replacement for man, guys, buddy, etc?
What is a gender neutral replacement for man, guys, buddy, etc?
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.
"Foolish mortals" is my go-to gender neutral form of address
I’m AFAB enby, saying “you guys” and calling me “dude” is fine. Those to me aren’t gendered anymore. The people who get offended at general terms like these for groups of people need to touch grass.
But if you’re dead set on it, embrace y’all lol. Just don’t say it with a southern drawl and you’ll be fine. It’s a fantastic gender neutral term. You can also just train yourself not to add in the “you guys” to the “what’s up” phrase, and maybe just say “what’s up with you?” “What’s up with you all?” Etc.
Mortals
Meatbags?
All the alternatives make me cringe.
If someone is insulted that you use the term "guys" for a group, they're not worth being friends with. That's a lot of exhausting mental energy to deal with. Ignore 'em and move on.
I find "y'all" works pretty well, so does "folks" or even better "Fellow Workers."
Fellow kids
"My fellow great ape"
Folks or Everyone tend to be my go to.
Cheese bags.
for singular use boo works, and plural you can say "hey, fuckos"
Is buddy really a problem?
I'd be more worried that someone thinks I'm treating them like a dog, than a man.
English is sorely lacking a second person plural. Y'all fills that gap well and should be adopted over other regional suggestions such as the Jersey youse guys or the dreaded Philly... yinz.
I'd avoid using "dude" as I've heard this specifically as an example that bothered some women.
Y'all is great. I use it often in the North East and only one schmuck ever said anything about it.
Buddy works, but comes off kind of aggressive towards strangers, same with pal or pals, but that may be my own regional affectation showing off.
You're asking about a collective and also a singular...
Just in general I'd say that if you're trying to quit a habit around trans women, go the extra mile and quit it around cis ones too. For the collective "hey guys" I have no one-word replacement ("folks/folx" sounds equally southern and somehow more cringe), but you could replace the whole phrase with "hey everybody", "hi gang", "how are you all", or just "hey".
When speaking to any woman, I would advise against calling them "dude" or "man." Full stop. No further thoughts necessary on that one.
I bit the bullet and was the cringy person at work who said "peeps". After a few months of do this, it was amusing to see the word spread until my boss's boss started saying peeps in meetings.
Fellow bipedal meat-things.
Dipshits
"Mate" is always a good option, I wish it's used more universally in the States, too.
I just omit the unnecessary words or use their name. That works OK, although I'm awful with names so usually it just becomes "Good job!" or "What's up?".
Funny story time: in English I find this is not so bad. In French it's worse. In Vietnamese it's awful. We have dozens of pronouns. They're not only mostly gendered, but contain information about their age and perceived status relative to you. It's a 3-dimensional matrix where the axes are approximately gender, age/hierarchy, and degree of relation (inlaws/blood relations/strangers). You even get a different word for yourself in some of these situations. Then sometimes there's a numerical rank inside each pronoun e.g. male uncle, my spouse's family, 3rd oldest.
The language is already at maximum pronoun burden. Honestly it would just be easier if we called each other 'human' or 'comrade' or 'citizen' or something equally encompassing. It's exhausting as a non-native speaker (and you are not ever allowed to use their names, that's considered super rude).
Comrade
My go-to is folks, but 1000 others have mentioned that already. So I will throw in "people".
"Hey people, how's it going?"
That works for me
"What's up everypony?"
My darlings, tell me everything.
You could copy Scooby do and refer to the group of people as 'gang', 'team' works too
Peeps
Gang
all friends everyone folks peeps team
If you're only addressing one person then it can be left off entirely.
cumsplats
What's poppin primates‽‽‽
"Gentels and Ladymen“
Peeps
Friend
Folks for groups and friend for individuals is my go to. Comrade if you want to be spicy
"What's up dog turds?"
"How's it hanging, dingleberry?"
"Nice job, Captain Hazelwood!"
I do actually know someone who speaks like this.
I sound even more southern than I am because I say "y'all" frequently to avoid gendered pronouns. People, you, and we are often good. I think my favorite is "you folks".
Chooms
What's up carbon based earthlings.
It depends on who you’re talking to. Many people don’t care about saying “guys” as it’s so universal. However, if you’re unsure or meeting new people, that’s where you’d likely want to change it up.
Hey friends! (This can be used for strangers too) What’s happening my peeps? Hello everyone! Hope you both have a good weekend
Or just What’s up? Hiya! Hey [insert their name]
Guys is probably the most neutral of the ones you mentioned.
I like what they use on the Bananas Podcast. "Guys, gals, and non-binary pals."
Potential litigants
I tend to use "folks" for my usual gender-neutral collective pronoun.
I don't think "dude" is a real issue, is it? Here in Australia, I'll happily use mate for any gender, and I often hear other genders do the same.
Of course, we also tend to unnecessarily shorten (or lengthen) people's names here, and those always get used:
- Darren = Daz or Dazza
- Josh = Josho
- Dan = Danno or Danny-boy
- Adam = Ads
- [first name] Thompson = Tommo
- [first name] Johnson - Jonno
Even our Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, is Albo. You get the idea... ;)
"YOU PEOPLE" 😂 I'm kidding
"Hey gang!"
"Hello, losers"
Dude its OK for me because you Know, the dude.
Pacifist as fuck, its a good name then. I don't feel it like man, etc. Even the majority when using it don't think about lebowski.
If i name someone dude, there is more than "man" behind. But I'm maybe wrong ?
Edit : oh sorry realized plurials.
People fine for me, its just an habit to change really. Or hey guys and girls or better, hey girls and guys 😂
But as non English speaker I could use dude for the group, and a my lady for her, if there is an fellow trans with me. Not others ofc. Will check thé answers for real lol
Mate Cunts Dickheads
I've found a lot of success using pal for the individual and folk for the group. Such as "Jesse is my pal", or "Hey folks."
....oh shit. Palworlds a thing now. Don't use pal.
gamer(s)
Alley cats
Y'all Y'uns Fuckers
You people
chum
comrade
Comrade ✊
"Yous badly-aimed batches of ejaculate"?
Youse fucking wallopers!
Everyone, you all, y'all
It depends on the group and setting. I use folks and y'all a lot, but don't put a heavy southern drawl on it. Sometimes I say homies or party people. Really, in an unprofessional setting I try about anything I can that could be considered a term to group people. I jumped in a Discord call the other day with two of my buddies already in there and opened by referring to them as bromosexuals. I try to have fun with it but professionally, folks or everyone is what I use most.
All, team, friends, everyone, folks (preferably prefixed with “howdy”)…
Pal, bud, friendo, sport, tiger, chief, boss.
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.
lemmies
I just call everyone "man" and "dude", irrespective of gender/sex ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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.
I typically go with something like, "howdy, folks".
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.
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.
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.
Esteemed personages.
What I use is y'all or folks for plural, and dude for singular.
Permanently Deleted
The south is objectively better than the rest of the USA (from my experience as foreigner). Just go with y'all.
Also I use dude with my NB friend pretty habitually.
Why are you trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist? Linguistics don't care about genders in biological sense.
amigo
Both my partner and I use "dude" interchangeably for all genders. They're NB for context
I feel like "guys" is definitely colloquially gender-neutral in most contexts.
"Fireman" is clearly a patriarchic term that literally has "man" in it. In English "firefighter" is commonplace nowadays, but in my native Finnish, a lot of professions have "man" in the term, much in the vein of "policeman", "ombudsman", the Finnish equivalent of "janitor", roughly translated directly as "building/house-man".
We've replaced loads. Most of them are good. Some new terms feel natural and get taken into use, but replacing "man" with "person" rarely works for us without feeling incredibly awkward to use.
So my point is that we can reclaim those terms as gender neutral. Context matters. N-word being acceptable among black people is completely acceptable (and actually a very nice tool for emphasis when properly utilised), and it's even in songs without anyone accusing the artists of racism. (Well, for pop songs at least, no racist hillbilly songs made it to that level.) That being said, it definitely doesn't take away from it's power as a slur if someone uses it in such a way.
So I suggest we'll just use "guys, bro, dudes" as gender neutral and rely that people will understand from context when they're actually used to address men/exclude women etc.
Also, isn't "buddy" sort of neutral already? *goes to check* OoooooOoOooooh, it's from "brother" originally. Guess it's not as neutral originally.
Well that's s new one for me.