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No, guy is not gender neutral.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/guy

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/guy

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/guy

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/11816/is-guy-gen...

Note that wiktionary points out the fact that the female complement to "guy" is "gal". https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/guy

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That's nice. The cultural norms where you're from aren't necessarily reflective of the use of language elsewhere though.

I haven’t heard the word gal used in person in a long time. “Guy” I hear frequently.

“Gal” seems derisive. I would assume someone was being berated or otherwise dismissed if being called “gal”. As in, “oh I suppose there are women here that I will address differently”, hence “gal”.

Interesting, I wouldn't place gal as derisive, just a word that has fallen out of common use. I used to work as a server and we'd talk about stuff like this.

Wonder if there is a regional aspect to it, or perhaps it being an older and less used word has lead to more individual variance in connotations?

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