I’m a person who calls everyone “dude”, “bro”, “man” etc. regardless of gender. When I talk to a woman using those words, my mentality isn’t that they are necessarilly “one of the bros” specifically meaning “similar to one of my male friends”, but more that I’ve never called anyone “sis” or “girl” in my life, and I’m not about to start. I also don’t like using gendered pronouns in any conversation, regardless of who I’m talking to. For example, instead of “him” or “her”, I will usually say " 'em" (short for them).
To me, I am not talking to a man or a woman; I am talking to a human.
With my transfem friends, though, I usually just call them by their name, since that seems to be a good compromise.
Who knows. Maybe I’ll just start calling everyone “comrade”
I appreciate your sense of trying to do right, but you should really not degender people, as that’s a thing that transphobes do when trying to not be seen as a transphobe. Degendering is very similar to misgendering, btw, in that it doesn’t respect the person’s pronouns, and thus is attempting to discredit their gender.
If you’re truly gender-abolitionist and (I will optimistically assume) race-abolitionist, and don’t want to have gender be part of you, congruently, maybe don’t use dude or bro at all anymore? Would you kiss a dude or a bro? Or did that question make you mentally imagine a masculine person?
I dunno. If I met a person in real life that truly never used he or she pronouns, and included me in that, I would probably be okay with it. But if they weren’t consistent and they just used it around me or with other trans people, I would have a huge problem with it. Because the crux of the problem would be whether or not they are truly trying to change everything, or if they just cannot see me as a woman and are trying not to be hurtful without trying to understand.
I notice a lot of corporate-like personalities try to do this by hedging their language. It always feels spineless and shitty, they are NOT trying to change everything, they’re just trying to manipulate everybody so that they can HAVE everything.
If you’re truly gender-abolitionist and (I will optimistically assume) race-abolitionist, and don’t want to have gender be part of you, congruently, maybe don’t use dude or bro at all anymore?
Gender, race, nationality, and country abolishionist.
I would love an alternative, but the colloquial American English language does not have casual, non-gendered words to refer to people in general other than “comrade”, but I don’t want to call everyone a comrade because then everyone will think I’m a communist (I am, but I don’t want that to be public).
folks, friend(s), y’all, sweetie, sugarcube, partner, sport, buddy, pal, chum, sunshine, fam
English has quite a few
Perhaps you should reflect on why you think bro and dude is humanizing but sis and girl is not
This is kind of the logic that hurts me. People like me will express that those terms make them uncomfortable, but someone will argue that they’ll use gendered words with the intent to be gender neutral. But like…it’s not very empathetic to disregard someone’s feelings because using ‘girl’ is uncomfortable. It’s kind of putting your feelings above there’s. If you have the opportunity to be kind and affirming, to make someone feel safe and comfortable in the world, why not embrace that? A simple change in your language could make someone’s entire day.
Nobody (including you) should put other peoples’ feeling above your own, as that is an extremely unhealthy thing to do. Being considerate of someone’s feelings and sacrificing your own feelings for someone else are two very different things.
The people I talk to don’t mind the way I talk, and that is how I judge my language. I also make sure that I give them the environment necessary to express their discomfort with my language if they have any.
Do you have any non-gendered alternatives to “dude” and “bro?”
Nobody (including you) should put other peoples’ feeling above your own
I kinda see where you’re coming from, but I wholeheartedly disagree.
You should never put your needs below anyone else’s, but I’d argue that it’s very healthy to mildly inconvenience yourself in order to avoid majorly inconveniencing or hurting others. In fact I’d say that’s kind of the entire cornersone of human civilization.
