The word guy, meaning man or fellow, comes from Guy Fawkes,1 leader of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, a failed attempt to assassinate King James I. A guy was an effigy of Fawkes, paraded through the streets on the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot every year. Later, a guy came to mean any grotesquely dressed person. Finally, guy came to mean a man.
These days, people claim that guy is a person of either gender, sometimes pointing to the use of guys to mean playable characters2 in video games. You might ask a person playing Ms. Pac-Man how many "guys" they have left, to get an idea of how much longer the game will last.
But to some people, guys signifies exclusion, especially in the workplace. For some women, the term can come across as a subtle diminution of their presence. For nonbinary and trans people, the word guys can be a form of misgendering.
An article in the Washington Post takes another view: that even if guys began as a gendered word, it's become neutral—and we should stop "hand-wringing over language" by apologizing for it:
One of the problems with dismissing the word guys as inherently masculine is that it assumes that the gendering of language is fixed…understanding how and why meanings change is more important than telling people what words they can and cannot say. It’s about expanding language instead of shutting it down, and understanding that one person’s experience of censorship is another’s experience of social justice.
There are those who insist guys no longer means men, even though so many dictionaries seem to disagree.3 If that were true, I would expect guys to seem just as neutral in the singular as it does in the plural. It sounds natural to say "Hey you guys"4 to a group that's not exclusively male, but that guy over there is always, well, a guy. To anyone who thinks guys is truly gender neutral, I ask: Who raised you—what kind of a guy is your mother?
It's possible that guy will get to the point of gender neutrality, but it also might not. Some people have no problem with it, but some do. In the meantime, guys rubs many people the wrong way.
It seems like an easy choice. Avoiding the word guys is likely to make it easier for some people to hear you.
V, the main character in V for Vendetta, wears a Guy Fawkes mask. The screenplay was written by Lana and Lilly Wachowski, who are also famous for the Matrix movies.
It’s worth taking a look at this article about non-playable characters in The New York Times. I’m looking forward to the movie Free Guy, in which an NPC fights back.
Still not convinced? Try a Google search for “guys.”
As Rita Moreno did for the first time on The Electric Company, episode 19 in 1971.
"Later, a guy came to mean any grotesquely dressed person. Finally, guy came to mean a man."
Or both? I resemble that remark.