Description: A five panel comic. In the first picture the main character leaves and a co-worker says “See ya, dude”. In the second panel, the protagonist is in a supermarket and the cashier says “Hey man.” In the third panel, the protagonist is on a train and someone on the phone says “Hello, sir.” In the fourth panel, the protagonist enters an apartment and says “I’ home.” and is welcomed by a woman who rushes towards her and says “THERE she is!” The two of them hug in the fifth panel, while the woman says “How’s my beautiful girlfriend doing??”
Art by Homunculus101
You must log in or register to comment.
omg my gf sent me this pic yesterday :D
I initially call everyone dude, but if I see even a modicum of discomfort when i say it I’ll change it up.
dude ❌
dudette ❌
dudex ✅
Removed by mod
Can confirm, it be like that sometimes.
So real. My wife is amazing and so supportive, I’m lucky to have her ❤️
I’m not out to everyone yet, and I feel bad she has to keep switching back to misgendering and deadnaming me whenever we go home to see family, I know it’s not easy
As someone on the other side of the same situation, I would say… well, I’d say don’t feel guilty, but I can’t really control how you feel. For me, at least, switching between gendering and mis-gendering my partner is no big deal (in terms of difficulty, of course I don’t enjoy mis-gendering her), and really it’s all worth it to see my girlfriend’s face light up when I call her my girlfriend in private. It’s not your fault that you live in a world where you can’t safely come out to everyone at the same time, so don’t worry about it :) I’m sure your wife really doesn’t mind the difficulty to keep you safe, and I’m glad you have that small bit of safety in her, if not elsewhere
Geez, I thought I had family problems. (I initially started this statement with “man” instead of “geez” but realized how ridiculous that would be.)
I’m sorry you and your wife have to go through that, but congratulations on identifying the real you, even if you don’t share her (I’m guessing, genuinely sorry if misgendering) with the world yet.
Thank you! You are correct, I am a trans gal. It’s good to have found the real me 😊
I’m out to my therapist, wife, and some of my friends, but none of my family yet. They’re all Catholic, and fairly devout at that, so I don’t have high hopes for how they’ll respond. I’m hoping they surprise me with how accepting they are, but I’m not banking on it. At a certain point, I won’t be able to hide my transition anymore, but for the moment, yeah, I’m boymoding when I go back to see family. Although I fortunately don’t have to do that too often
Hi all, not really a comment on this cartoon but a question if that’s ok, I often use guys and dude as gender neutral terms (interchangeable with folks for ex). Is that hurtful or misgendering, are those habits I should break? Ty
“dude” “man” “guy” etc arent gender neutral, its surprising to me that this is still something regularly asked in places (this isnt to say it is bad that you asked, more just an observation). just because something is the norm doesnt mean that it is correct or good. you arent going to walk up to some guy (and when i say this, you most likely think “man”) and say “hey gal whats up” so why is it then okay to walk up to a gal and be like “hey dude”. this “male as default” way of thinking is rooted in misogyny, and women are defined in the ways theyre “not men”, they are “other”. gender neutral = masculine because society views men and masculinity as the superior gender and gender expression. by using these terms as “gender neutral” terms you are reenforcing this way of thinking
Most of us would prefer not to be called a guy or dude. Gal is right there. Lady is not quite as analogous but we appreciate the effort.
Noted, thank you
I mean the classic rebuttal is:
would saying “I only date guys” (/dudes) connotate gender neutral? Same for “That’s a guy.”
It’s “neutral” because it falls prey to the English language issue of having male-oriented terms as the default for people (whereas objects- ships, planes, etc tend to be female)
The interesting exception is the term “man” itself which is a gender neutral root word. At some point after the adoption of Christianity people dropped the “were” prefix and just started assuming if you were talking about someone they had to be male unless otherwise stated.
I think one argument would be that if you use “only” beforehand then the next linguistic object must (or at least should) be descriptive, meaning that if you only say “guys” then you’re kind of infusing meaning into it, which defaults back to how the word has been used historically. If someone said “I only date cool guys” then I think it’s more ambiguous.
That being said, I also think there is still quite a strong gendered connotation to guy/dude and the gender-neutral definition is pretty modern. The good thing is that language is defined by its usage, so if we decide to use it as a gender-neutral term then eventually that is what it will become.
Yeah, and while the example does have merit, language often evolves. I could say “he seems quite gay” and the meaning is going to slant more towards orientation than mood per the last several decades.
“Hey you guys” has actually become pretty gender-unspecific in use over time. My daughters call everyone “you guys” , and I pretty much use the same term with them. It’s not to indicate they’re masculine, but has become a catch-all for “all of you” in modern language.
Oh interesting, thanks for this. I mean I wouldn’t be opposed to saying that but it def feels less neutral in that context as far as communicating what I would be trying to say…sounds like this might just be me not seeing the whole picture…thank you :)
How many dudes have you slept with recently?
None, why do you ask?
Damn it, I forgot where I’m posting.
lol nice have fun!
It depends.
Taking an honest look at your interactions, do you actually call cis women dudes? If so, I think that’s fine. But I’ve encountered more than one person who says they use those terms gender-neutrally, but never or rarely just genuinely them toward cis women, as opposed to men and trans women.
In my own case I call both cis & trans women “guys” or “dudes” under specific male dominated contexts. Like during playing video games & pen and paper gaming.
This has always been fine except for recently there is a hiccup. My cousin has semi-recently begun transitioning, so whenever she’s playing video games with me on my discord I kind of can’t help but slow myself down (or end up correcting myself) when referring to her which I wouldn’t do for a cis woman… Thus far they have not noted this as treatment differing what I might do for a cis woman because admittedly the cis women on my discord never jump in to play Battlefield or Killing Floor 1/2 anyways but it still makes me wonder if I’m helping or hurting the situation.
For me personally, that’s the best i got, i only look for intentions. Was that, “Hey, dude” derogatory? Was it just a general “howdy”? Each is much more than just the word. It’s about the inflection and emphasis. Pretty easy to tell when they are being intentionally rude.
I’ve used many tact to get around this. More than often it throws me off so much I’m genuinely flabbergasted. My look often works great if anyone else is around. Sometimes i just full on ignore them. Not even a head glance. Genuinely assume they are not speaking to you. Its a very hard sheild to weave. Once you learn the art of not reacting they are forced to bathe in the comment. Let it breath. Make them think about what they just said.
Still a 50/50 haha 😄
I actually do yeah… thanks for reply
I call everyone “bro” and “dude” but only in the passive or collective sense. I don’t say “my wife is a dude” but I do say “dude, what’s up?” to my wife. It’s just how I talk and she doesn’t care.
But also I refer to people how they want to be referred to.
Yeah pretty much same
I think there’s nothing to worry about, then! It’s cool that you asked here.
I’m gonna go ahead and disagree with everybody else. I don’t like it. I generally don’t speak up for myself in real life, but it does bother me deeply. There’s no great solution, this is just my honest opinion that it makes me uncomfortable and I’m trying to not be this way but it does actually bother me.
Like. What do you even think this comic is trying to tell you? It’s EXACTLY like the comic, which is why it is highly upvoted.
Also, it is not gender neutral, it is more complicated than that and much more problematic. “You want to get fucked by ten dudes” is not gender neutral.
Not looking for sympathy or advice, just here’s my trend over time to deal with this.
I am making considerable effort (and regularly failing because damn verbal ticks plus ADHD got hands) to avoid using any gendered or gender neutral terms as the folks in my community change pronouns and names regularly. I just got pretty harshly scolded the other day for using a gender neutral pronoun to refer to a person who told me to use it two months ago, but now it makes that person feel bad and this was the first I heard of it. Almost all of these people are not fully out so I have to keep a mental map of who gets what names and pronouns get used with what people.
I cannot learn and unlearn them fast enough, keep the right context of who is is the room, and keep up with current preferred names and pronouns which change semi-regularly. I cannot overstate how hard this is for my ADHD ass.
Especially when person A is out to B but not C, and D is out to C but not B, and I’m talking to B but C walks in the room, but then B leaves and I’m alone with C. This seems to happen to me several times a week. The mental gymnastics is absolutely thrashing my CPU. And I am trying my damnedest but keep fucking it up and making my friends sad.
I think I’m too ADHD to use pronouns, so I just attempt to use people’s current names directly (still keeping attention to who they are out to) or just never speak about them to others and use no names or pronouns at all when talking directly. The latter is easier overall, so that’s generally what I aim for. Never talking about these people feels like erasure or something but that seems like the best way to avoid causing what seems to be significant emotional pain and/or accidental outing.
There’s some where it’s stable enough to at least use names directly, but those are few. And those still aren’t out at large, so I’m still faced with the accidental outing issue which is very real.
I guess I’m doing something right because it seems I’m always in the know. I legit want to be an ally to folks and support them in whatever. Just damn I’m not smart enough. I need like a universal translator.
Out of curiosity, what age range are these folks?
I’m having to deal with some people in the “coming of age” range and it is rough. One of them says their preferred pronouns shift constantly, but people should be able to tell based on how they are acting in the moment whether they feel feminine or masculine, to use ‘they’ is a cop out signifiying that someone doesn’t care enough to tell… The person decided mid conversation they felt more feminine and was disappointed I didn’t swap without being told…
I try to be understanding, but folks need to recognize that even if their own internal life and identity is a rich and complicated thing, they need to simplify it for those of us on the outside and understand we can’t possibly see inside their mind to understand all these factors that they think should be obvious.
Ages are 18-40.
Yeah that is pretty close to my experience, but thankfully none have been that fluid about it. Just changing week by week instead of minute by minute
Yeah, before the newest one, the most complicated one was on the scale of weeks. And yes they were also kind of upset if you were one or two iterations behind, despite not having seen them since their last two changes…
I remember a bit of this from when I was their age among my peers, and generally whatever it was settled in by 22 or so, a few years of indpendence tended to have people settle in, or at least if they were going to change it was going to be with more conviction than the teenage years.
I think some presume there’s some “wholeness” associated with a gender identity and keep juggling around being disappointed that presumed wholeness/rightness is elusive. At some point you accept some degree of wrongness/incompletness is just the human condition, and it’s not too bad if you don’t overthink it, just pick the path that minimizes that feeling and roll with it.
Same… also trying but there’s limited marbles rolling around up there lol
Varies from person to person. In general I wouldn’t worry about it too much, the way those are used is pretty gender neutral in general even though they can contextually be male. If you know you’re addressing a trans gal maybe make more of an effort for folks but I wouldn’t worry about it too much. If someone tells you it bothers them, then ya know, try not to. In general the litmus test for me is would it be a problem if they were cis? If not, then not a problem by default (if it bothers them, it’s an exception to account for)
Overall, I think it’s silly to be concerned over the use of guys and dudes instead of the tendency to treat everyone on the Internet as male.
The fact you want to be considerate puts you far ahead of the crowd!
I’d agree but not having to deal with theoretically gender neutral terms is a bit annoying. In German it is especially annoying because of the frequent use of generic masculine which is annoyingly common outside queer and feminist spaces.
In the immortal words of Kel Mitchell, “I’m a dude, he’s a dude, she’s a dude, we’re all just dudes”. (Good Burger, 1997)
Counterpoint: would you sleep with a dude? (If yes then more power to you, hehe)
Some people like dudes and that’s okay!
Yes, I would sleep with a dude, dude-presenting, assigned dude at birth, transdude, or non-unary.
Edit: in principle. In reality I am in a long term monogamous relationship so I only sleep with my dude
We could all do with a little reflection on the words from the Book of Kel (Mitchell). It isn’t prophecy, but it is accurate in a sense.
I think you’re probably fine, it’s really common to use those words gender neutrally. If a trans woman asks you to not refer to her that way, then it would be considerate to stop, but until someone asks you, you’re good, imo
Thank you all for the replies and perspective, have a wonderful day!
It took a while for me to switch pronouns when my colleague transitioned. Up until that point I had been “hey man… man, listen… y’alright dude…” etc. (literally had no idea what they were going through until the day before)
I simply did not have that same banter vocabulary for girls, and I just had to learn to say “hey… listen… y’alright…”
The dynamic changed a bit for a week, but then it bounced back fine. I just wince at all the gender-affirming vernacular in my casual speech that must have burned them every time I said it
I simply did not have that same banter vocabulary for girls, and I just had to learn to say “hey… listen… y’alright…”
I just use the formal words for women in an informal tone. “Look lady”, “madam, I assure you this shit is fucked” etc
Isn’t that the same problem as using “man” though ? You’re affirming a pronoun that they genuinely might not jell with, and are too polite/scared of reproach to correct
Listen here mother fucker!
Works for everyone over age 12
I like shitfuck. Now look here shitfuck.
Buddy/champ/sport are gender neutral but maybe not the vibe you’re going for
They did mention that they were the lacking the vocab for girls specifically. I don’t think this was meant to be a general suggestion.
My habit of calling every person “dude” and saying “man” as just a way to start a sentence regardless of the gender of the person I’m talking to has made awkward moments before lol. I never mean anything by it or even think about it but every so often talking to a trans friend I will go “oop, sorry”
Same, I find actual pronouns very easy but these more casual terms of address have been harder to find replacements for, for me in a non-binary context. Luckily my friends are very forgiving.
My go-to has pretty much become “friend” although this might not work with a colleague.
Removed by mod
She’s a woman
felt, except I’m e-dating so my girlfriend is in my phone and on the other side of an e2ee, so I get her gender affirming messages during work sometimes.
I swear I am here for the wholesomeness and not because my egg is cracking 😭
🫂
