where I grew up in California not only is “dude” generally non-gender-specific, half of the time it doesn’t even refer to a person at all.
I said it to a faucet today.
A customer once came to me to order a sandwich and said “I want this dude”
Dude is more than a word, it’s an emotion.
dude is a way of life
I use “dude” to congradulate my friend on youtube but everyone always ends up saying “thats a girl.”