in addition to you being an asshole, you’re also wrong in practice about how HR teams work. If they hear about shit like this, they really do try to do something about it. Sometimes they can’t really accomplish anything, and they’re just bureaucratic about it, but no, they do not think of the person making the report as a problem, they think about the person actually causing the actual problem. Hostile work environments are unproductive, are bad for employee retention, and have a heightened risk of law suit. Only shitty businesspeople think the problem doesn’t exist as long as it’s not on paper.
OP’s better off if their employees steer clear of them—that much is obvious, isn’t it?
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.