gender-neutral second-person plurals

[firecat]

I left this datapoint in selki's journal. (She said that the word "guy" isn't "some sort of modern gender-neutral salutation". Let me be clear that I completely respect this viewpoint.)

"Guys" or "you guys" has a completely gender-neutral connotation to me...but only when used as a second-person plural pronoun, the same way people use "y'all" or "youse". It feels wrong to me to address or label a woman or girl as a "guy" or to say "Those guys over there" when referring to a mixed group or a group of women/girls. But I'll comfortably say "OK, you guys..." even to a group of all women.

This isn't modern; I've been doing it my whole life and I'm over 50. I grew up in Michigan; I wonder if this is a regional usage.

In contrast, "dude," "men," "mankind," and "he/him" have a male-only connotation to me, although I can hear other people use "dude" in a gender-neutral manner. (I can't do that with the other words.)

Thoughts? Datapoints?

I also use "y'all," "youse" (but they don't feel like "my language"; they feel like I'm stealing them from other people's language), "peeps," and "folks." ("Peeps" feels modern to me, and "folks" feels old-fashioned.)

Comments

[akycha]

I'm from California, but don't currently live there. I use "Duuuude" as an exclamation, but it doesn't have a gender as such because as an exclamation, it doesn't refer to a person. (Meaning depends on inflection and can vary from "Hey, I'm glad we still have a front bumper on the car and by the way, did you notice they didn't use a turn signal?" to "Are you seriously, seriously, seriously sure that you want to pick up that angry kitten?" to "That looked like a UFO over there, call the X-Files.")

"Dude" when referring to a person "Those dudes" is exclusively male to me, and I never use it that way.

I was trained to use "you guys" as gender-neutral, but I don't anymore, and like other commenters, whether I perceive it that way in usage has to do with the speaker.