• Pennomi@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    I mean I call my woman friends “man” or “dude” or “guys” all the time… those words have become fairly gender neutral in casual conversation. But I try to be a lot more careful around trans women, they deserve to know I believe in them.

    • Ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      15 hours ago

      They’re gender neutral in the same way “man” can be used instead of “human”. Which is to say it’s not gender neutral at all, it’s a sexism so deeply entrenched that it’s completely normalised and often invisible. It’s called “male as the default”.

      So, even if you don’t see the issue, it is there, and many people are not ok with that, so you really should make sure that your gender diverse friends are genuinely comfortable with the terms, because it’s often hard for trans folk to push back against their friends using terms like that, for fear of being seen as difficult/precious etc.

      • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        Yeah no worries, my friends are cool with it. If they weren’t obviously I’d say something else.

        You wouldn’t really see these kinds of issues with my friends anyway. Because Spanish is inherently a gendered language, it’s not a deep cultural issue like it is to English folks.

        • thatonecoder@lemmy.ca
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          13 hours ago

          Keep in mind that grammatical gender !/ gender. So, you can use Ella for men, because “Ella (la persona) es bonita”