"Guys" means "people". I have grown up in the Midwest as well where it's common to hear girls and women use it to address all-female groups. It's basically like how "mankind" or "man" is short for "humankind" or "human" and not for "male". These are also backed up in dictionaries that are more than a few years old
One of my former employers only a few years ago announced that they would ban the term "guys" because some people thought it was sexist. The ban was droppped because many people openly objected to the needless censorship while others simply saw no problem with the word and naturally just kept on using it. It was around the same time when coders and real estate agents were working to ban the term "master" from everything
I’ve said “you guys” all my life (grew up in the northeast) but I’m a professor and teach mixed-gender classes from all over the world. Plenty of people are completely fine with “guys” as a gender neutral term and express bafflement that there would be a problem. However: a non-trivial percentage find it weird, not necessarily because HR told them to, but because it really sounds odd to them. One person asked me if it would sound normal to ask “how many guys have you dated recently” and I took their point that this would indeed sound very gendered.
The lesson is: things that sounded normal to you and your peer group growing up might not work in the larger and more culturally diverse world you encounter professionally. So why insist on them? I’ve switched to “you folks” which makes me sound like I’m about to lead a square dance, but people seem to find it disarming.
In 18th century England it used to refer to women. The point being that language usage has both regional and temporal variance, so why not avoid terms that some people might find uncomfortable? I’m offering this not as a dictate from the language police, but as a suggestion to improve your effectiveness as a professional communicator - a skill that is highly correlated with long-term career success.
but why is the prescription for speakers to converge on a single homogenous blob of usage rather than encouraging listeners to acknowledge and understand the diversity of uses?
One of my former employers only a few years ago announced that they would ban the term "guys" because some people thought it was sexist. The ban was droppped because many people openly objected to the needless censorship while others simply saw no problem with the word and naturally just kept on using it. It was around the same time when coders and real estate agents were working to ban the term "master" from everything