If I had to try to nail down when it is and isn't inclusive, I would say that when it is used in the second-person, where a speaker is directly addressing a group, it is the most likely to be gender-neutral: "Do you guys like this idea? Can I get you guys anything?"

When it is used in a first- or third-person perspective, it's less likely to be used in a gender-neutral way. "I know some guys who work there" tends to be used only if you're talking about men. If you're talking about women only or a mixed group, it's more common to say, "I know some women who work there" or "I know some people who work there."

People assuming how they use language, is right, assumes that there is one language, eg, one english, not many.

Very 'centre of the universe' thinking.

I grew up in Toronto, Canada where "guys" was widely used as a gender-neutral term in most contexts (admittedly there are some phrases where a gender is heavily implied). However when I was working at a tech company in Dublin, Ireland I noticed that if I addressed a room with "guys" women in the room would often feel excluded. This is not unreasonable given the different dialects and the minority of women in this setting. So sure, we could say that she is wrong for feeling excluded but when many minorities already feel excluded it seems wrong to use language that reaffirms that nagging feeling constantly whispering to them from the back of their mind.

And avoiding the term "guys" is a simple case even though "Y'all" and "folks" sound really odd to me, I agree that there is a huge spectrum here and the line of what is reasonable and what isn't is incredibly fuzzy.

In some cases, I found it the opposite. I've discussed this with a woman or two, as I was curious, and didn't want to offend. And they felt it includes them. Nothing is changed because they are there, they're just "one of the guys". Not a woman, or a man. Just another person in the group.

You cite Dublin, and that's valid. And yet, that was me point. Here was have a world spanning company, Google, which should be as "metropolitan' as they come, blathering on about setting world-wide language policy, from the viewpoint of a small little US state.

Seems very, very colloquial to me.

If you're going to work in a world-spanning company, thinking your culture, in your little, tiny corner of the world, is "right" all the time is absurd.

Yes, there are are colloquial uses where it is gender neutral, but those are not universal internationally.

This seems like a completely made up problem.

> This seems like a completely made up problem.

Only because it doesn't impact you. Consider developing more empathy. Surely you know some folks who gave challenges in their lives that others callously dismiss as not a big deal.

> Surely you know some folks who gave challenges in their lives that others callously dismiss as not a big deal.

Sure do. And they recognised that those problems were their own that they needed to overcome. Not insist that everyone else change to accommodate them.

So for some people guys has a touch of the ladies not being explicitly asked for feedback to questions like "hi guys, where should we go today". Now this is not universal but language rarely is and context matters a whole lot.

Well yes, which undermines your example. When I see women use the term 'hey guys', they are normally addressing a mixed group, with no precedence implied or inferred. In a 1-on-1 conversation, I would find it weird asking someone their dating history if I didn't know what their sexual orientation was. Different context, different connotations.