Imagine a movie theater. You are sitting in your seat, patiently waiting for the movie to start. As you're waiting another movie-goer does that awkward shuffle walk past you, stumbles a little and ends up stomping their foot on yours. Pain shoots through your leg as the bones crack. This motherfucker just broke your fucking toe!
They apologize, because obviously they didn't mean to break your toe! It was an accident. They didn't know your foot was there!
Is your toe any less broken because it wasn't their intention to break it? Or is does the harm that they did continue to impact you, even if it wasn't intentional?
This is clearly a simplification, but when you say things like "dude is gender neutral" you are telling people that your intent and your understanding of the word outweighs the impact of their experience because that's not how you meant it.
It doesn't work that way.
You do not get to dictate how people feel about the things they're called. You are, of course, free to ignore that. But in doing so you are rejecting the autonomy of the person you're referring to. You are saying that you know better than them how they should react to something. You are being domineering. You are mirroring a patriarchal tool for the oppression of all non-men that suggests that to be referred to as male is acceptable for all genders but never the reverse. Ew.
There are plenty of reasons why a person wouldn't want to be referred to as male, in any context. No one expects anyone to know the minefield of gendered experiences that anyone has gone through. This is why rather than assuming that the word that you're using will be understood as neutral (your intent) you ought to try to avoid using words that might be harmful (your impact).
And if it's REALLY SO FUCKING HARD to remove the word dude (and other words) from your vocabulary I would gently ask that you sit with why that is, why your linguistic tic is more important than making room for another person's full humanity.
lettuceLeafer wrote
I prefer the meme on raddle from a while back. Too lazy to look for it.
On the top frame there is a white masculine person "I call everyone dude so it's not gendered
Bottom frame
"Oh so how many dudes have u fucked"
If straight guys don't say they fuck dudes then dude isn't genderless.