Froedtert Hospital has been named a 2017 Leader in LGBTQ Healthcare Equality by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, the educational arm of the country's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning/queer civil rights organization.
Indeed, the data presented here confirm that dude is an address term that is used mostly by young men to address other young men; however, its use has expanded so that it is now used as a general address term for a group (same or mixed gender), and by and to women.
Dude is an old term, recognized by multiple generations although potentially with slightly different meanings. From the 1870s to the 1960s, dude primarily meant a person who dressed in an extremely fashion-forward manner (a dandy) or a citified person who was visiting a rural location but stuck out (a city slicker).