You're not on trial for referring to someone as a dude. It's an old as dirt tactic to put you on the defensive.
I forgot to update my G+ profile (that's where YT gets its data, and I really don't pay much attention to that). So Mr. No_just_no has a fair point, but I'm not relishing opening up the door to further bullshit there.
That said, the "they" is a compromise pronoun for me because I know that something more descriptive will just meet with _even more pushback_.