You know that’s entirely valid. I tend to over-empathize with groups I superficially fall into (such as people who use dude/bro as gender neutral) and assume that their intentions are as innocent as mine, which they may well not be, which leave me dying on the same hill as bigots.
Fair enough, sorry for misrepresenting your culture. The point I was trying to get to was that, in general, prescribing use of language is bad. A word means what the person saying it intended it to mean (and of course, the other side of that blade means that calling anyone anything can be rude / hurtful if it has that intention behind it) and as English develops, in some dialects of it, words like “bro” and “dude” are not meant with the meaning of “man family member” and “man (gender)” in some applications, and choosing to resist that change because the words previous meanings could be harmful in some contexts might not be something I agree with.
If this is not the space for this discussion to be had I apologize, but it is one i would like to have
I appologise (un-ironically)
I admit I am still a little debatebro brained, and I did not realize this was the trans specific comm when I first posted, If this is not a space for disagreement, I apologize for inserting my opinion into it.
I do not support intentional or malicious use of bro/guys to misgender, And if anyone in particular were to ask me to stop referring to them as such, I would (and do) try my best to do so.
My goal was to start a productive discussion about the conflict between the take you posted and linguistic descriptivism, which I tend to align myself with and believe is a popular opinion in these circles. I feel justified to discuss this issue as I identify with groups that use bro and dude as a gender neutral form of address, and hence I feel justified to defend myself. once again, if this is not the space for that I apologize, and will remove myself from the discussion, however If anyone would like to have a productive discussion on the topic I am open to changing or refining my opinion.
I also used a poor tone for my goal, and to communicate my dissatisfaction in the response i received, reedit snark is a hard thing to get out of your system.
edit: forgot how formatting worked, broke up brick of text into pieces
Yes yes sorry I forgot no one is allowed to be contrarian about anything ever
Alternative take that i dont necessarily beleive in but has been bouncing around in my head a while: In the dialect of the English language my sub-culture typically ascribes to, dude is gender neutral when used as an address, please don’t assume I am using language incorrectly because it doesn’t follow the rules of your dialect. Would you go to Australia and pear-clutch because someone called you a c*** (in the familiar/genial use of the word)
I’ve put dough on top of my computer to rise while playing games before because of the extra warmth, purpose of a system is what is does
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Really? I thought approaching the dude/bro/buddy issue from a linguistic perscriptivism vs descriptivism perspective was at least a somewhat novel approach, and worth bringing up for discussion if anyone felt comfortable doing so with me.
When I started posting, I thought this was in a general comm, If i was aware I was inserting my opinion in a comm I am guest in as a non-trans person, I would have brought it up more delicately or considered saving it for a general comm. I appologise again if starting this kind of discussion is not welcome here, and if anyone wants me to shut up about it, I will.
I wholesale agree with you on this, as I said in the comment you replied to, I do not support intentional or malicious use of bro/guys to misgender, And if anyone in particular were to ask me to stop referring to them as such, I would (and do) try my best to do so. I am not and would never argue in favor of ignoring people’s direct wishes on what they want to referred to as.
After my discussions with users in other threads from this comment, I think my personal conclusion is that while from some perspectives the “dude is gender neutral” approach may have legs, the people who use it are usually doing so as an excuse to directly dismiss people’s wishes about what they want to be referred to, at best to cling to “being right” and at worst to invalidate people’s gender identity or validity as a person, which is cringe.