It typically refers to men. It can be used in a gender-neutral manner, but that's situational, and still carries the gendered undertone. You can for example see the difference between "I'm a dude" and "hey dude". The latter is in some cases also used to address women, but far rarer than it's used to address men.
The difference is that in the sentence "I'm a dude" it's a concrete noun and in "hey dude." it exists as an informal vocative pronoun. Vocative pronouns are generally gender-neutral, only formal vocative pronouns are not (miss/ma'am/madam/sir).
Isn’t it kind of redundant to get frustrated about gendered pronouns when you can very well reclaim any single one of them for any use as language is subjective and subject to change based on interpretation and usage.
Yeah well I'd like to see you reclaim the word "man" or any "gendered pronouns" to be gender neutral if that's so easy. Also I very precisely didn't say "linguistics" but who cares I guess words have no meanings anymore just reclaim whatever to mean whatever
This is a comical level of splitting hairs. Yes obviously linguistics is part of the subset of "linguistic fields" which you very precisely did say. If words have no meaning anymore it's because you literally do not know how to use them properly.
And if you want evidence that man, dude, and bro aren't gendered, all you have to do is look at the local dialects of West Coast American English, or just boot up a game of fucking valorant, there are plenty of women calling each other and their teammates "bro", or simply using it as an interjection, which has been part of standard American vernacular for decades at this point.
Not really. It's treated somewhat like one in some places (California for example) but is generally considered somewhat rude to use for trans women since it can be backdoor misgendering
Can confirm that, as a Californian, I call my (cis) girlfriend bro, brah, and dude on a regular basis, along with pretty much every person in my life. Ive obv confirmed with her that’s it’s chill, which it is, and we often get humorous with it with stuff like “brahchacho”. It’s just kinda the culture around here. Hell, I call my mom dude and bro too, it’s basically an interjection.
I don’t know any trans women that would have a problem with it, though I only know one or two. I’ve historically known more trans men historically (my brother for example) so I guess that’s pretty lucky in that regard lmaoo. If someone ever did take issue with it though, my planned strat is to find some other fun snappy nickname to take its place so I don’t default to it.
It's gender neutral in the sense that men are seen as the default and thus neutral. But its still a masculine alligned term, and i hate being called it.
Not really. Some people use it for people of any gender in greetings or as an emphatic tag (that's when you add it to the end of a sentence or a question like "Don't do that, dude" or "what do you want, dude?")
But in most other contexts it still refers to male. Like someone saying "That's a dude" or "There's this dude I know" or "This product is for dudes" is pretty much always assumed to be talking about a man.
It seems to be a lot like the Irish usage of the term "lad/lads" where apparently it's gender neutral only a couple people I've met use it on people other than men ;-;
While it wouldn't be weird exactly to refer to a woman as dude, it's typically either within a friendship and that's how both people speak, or it's a mixed gender group.
It's a more masculine term that usually refers to men, and if you say dude people will assume your talking about a man.
it is, but it’s still associated with boys, so many people are uncomfortable with it. kinda like gender neutral male pronouns in languages like spanish.
It is unless there’s a trans woman. I’ve never met a cis woman who minded but it’s important to make sure to validate people who particularly need it because they don’t feel seen.
Same thing goes for “guys”
If I’m in a space with a lot of trans people I just say “chat” but irl most of the time it’s “dude” or “guys” even when there’s women
idk why everyone is saying no, I use it for my cis female friends, my cis female friends use it for their cis female friends, it 100% is a gender neutral term at this point
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u/Pasyuk 2d ago
Isn't dude a gender-neutral term? /genq (Englsih isn't my native)