I think I did it, y’all! I solved the problem of the gender neutral ‘dude’. This time tested slang has survived generations of youth cultural reinventions to become a perennial exclamation nearly as versatile as “fuck” in its range.
But then trans equality came along and ruined it for all those cis dudes out there who were mad that it’s technically gendered and didn’t like getting asked to replace it.
Complicating the situation were the many trans voices who were like “look we get it but also, dude! Cis people have taken everything must you also give them Bill and Ted?” Cis male Bill and Ted clones everywhere cackled and used this pushback to justify misgendering people who had clearly expressed their preference otherwise.
I tend to side with inclusivity and caution, particularly given the nature of social mass media, one is always speaking to a mixed audience even when one has no intention of doing so, and it’s just easier for me to aim for the most affirming common denominator possible.
I’ve eliminated all the obvious n-, f-, t-, p-, c-, b-, and r- words (yes, even when singing out loud), and mostly eliminated second and third tier concerns likes “guys”, “crazy”, and “gay” (as in “lame”, er … “rubbish”).
It’s generally not difficult to settle on an alternative to a problematic term, the hard part is usually breaking the habit. But with “dude” we have a conundrum. What else could possibly have the same versatility, the same history, the same pop cultural ubiquity?
And then it happened. I was texting a close friend and the topic of scripture came up, as it so often does in this land where love of money and worldly power is the status quo. As a liberationist I take special exception to political evangelicals and their stranglehold on the public image of what Christianity looks like.
He was texting to compliment a post where I’d brought up the teaching against bigotry: there is no man or woman, no Jew or Gentile, no slave or free. All are one in Christ Jesus.
One of the most succinct and beautiful affirmations of equality I know of. I had used the term “siblings” in place of “brothers and sisters” to avoid binary gendering.
He remarked that as a cis male, he found joy in another scripture which states that God made us all “man and woman” which in Hebrew idiom indicates spectrum, and could also be taken to indicate the divine masc and femme within each one of us. Since masculinity is so important to cis male indoctrination, this teaching doesn’t take anything away whereas “there is no male or female” seems to erase binary identity.
Interesting take, and worthy of discourse. But why discourse when you can quip? I replied, “great insight, sisbro” (tacking “sister” onto “brother” to indicate the merger of male and female in a single identity) and there it was.
The new “dude”.
SISBRO IS THE NEW DUDE.
