I think about this sometimes. I’m not sure if it’s like the word “guys” or not but I’ve defaulted to just not calling trans women it even if I call cis women nigga because it’s unclear. It’s weird because if I said “niggas” it could be a group of all men or a mixed gender group but not a group of women. However, With all the black women friends I’ve had the word has been used to refer to each other and to men
The word could be used as a slur against women as well. All black people can be niggas. Not just men. So it could be gender neutral??
Also I’ve found that white people mostly see “niggas” as solely referring to black men but who cares what they think? Not me.
o_o ive never thought of it as gendered before… i guess it is a little masculine? it really depends who is saying it, who theyre saying it to, the context, etc. between women ive def heard “nigga please (eyeroll)” so it can’t be JUST a masculine term. at least not all the time. it also varies from location to location i feel, maybe even as specific as community to community, how Black you are, etc etc. men ARE more likely to call each other nigga though yeah.
my mother is pretty ladylike, she wont say nigga, but she will curse lol. my family didnt say it growing up in the rural sw desert, so i dont say nigga often, if at all, and i eapecially dont say it to Black women unless they refer to themselves that way…
there is something to be said here about the misogynoiristic hypermasculinization of Black women (especially by yt people), but im not exactly sure how to connect it. yfm? like when yt people say the dreaded hard R, its meant to be derogatory and also hypermasculinizing to all/any black people.
AAVE being heavily contextual and regional make its so that it’s hard to give a definitive answer to questions like this tbh which is why I just default to not using it for trans women at all lol. I’m getting varying answers to this. In my experience it’s used more gender neutrally but for other people it’s specifically masculine.
I think the word being used for black women is just dehumanizing nature of the word in general as its used for black children as well. The hard r isn’t just black men. Though I won’t deny there’s a masculinization aspect to it.
nod nod. so i guess tldr, i guess its better to err on the side of caution and just not say it willy nilly even if we are also Black haha. im living in tx now and i think native Black houstonians would say im goofy for overthinking it x)