I just call everyone "man" and "dude", irrespective of gender/sex ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

lemmies

wait, is "buddy" gendered?

I like to mix it up. but language is context dependent. "buddy" is a go-to of mine, and feels entirely gender neutral.

"my people" is good for plural.

"friend" is good as long as you have the right rhythm with it. Like, you know, in the second person, like "hello, friend."

"bro" obviously doesn't work, but I have casually referred to trans friends as "broham" and they didn't seem to mind. I don't do it often, but sometimes mixing in a good bro pun is more fun that way... go a little over the top, call somebody brobrahk brobrahma, nobody's going to be thinking that you're implying gender, it's an equally ridiculous term to call anybody by. Similarly, although context dependent, there are implicitly feminine words you can use, although some of them can be degrading in the wrong context. "Gurl," "bitch," and "slut" can work, as long as it's ridiculous enough in context not to be taken seriously. I'm a guy, I've had friends call me these. "Gurl" might not be the best for a nonbinary friend or a trans man friend, so be careful with it.

I don't know, I only have a few nonbinary friends, I guess, and I mostly refer to most of them by their names.

Dudes is fine - folks and yall also work. I use yall all the time even though I'm now in Canada and have never lived in the US south.

Guys, I think, is still a bit too gender associated but it's borderline. Man is often used in a gender neutral manner but it is very easy to misinterpret and a transwoman could reasonably assume you're trying to troll them.

You've also got fella and feller, I think the latter one is more gender neutral than the former.

The south is objectively better than the rest of the USA (from my experience as foreigner). Just go with y'all.

Also I use dude with my NB friend pretty habitually.