Usually, but it depends on cultural context.

For example, where I'm from (West Ireland), the term "Lads" is often used for everyone regardless of gender. One might hear a lady say she's "Going out with the lads" when describing a night out, with even a mostly female group of companions.

Basically, we should try to not use language which excludes others, but in some cases the person is actually using gender-neutral language from their culture and does not intend to exclude anyone.

It all depends on context. "I'm going to go hang out with the guys." yes, exclusive. "Hey guys, I'm going to work." not exclusive. Try focusing on the meaning being conveyed and not the glyphs representing it.

I don't think the issue is as simple as that. Here is more on the topic: https://subfictional.com/2012/07/02/language-matters-stop-us...

I don't know where this author comes from, but obviously not the Northeast or West coasts of the US where "guys" has been used to refer to mixed gender groups for decades. It's no different that "y'all" which is more popular in other parts of the country. Words and phrases change meaning all the time. The essay fails to understand such a simple concept and is just plain stupid because of it.

The strangest part of that article is this:

  I understand how ingrained the “guys” habit might be for 
  some of you. It was for me. After several months of 
  concerted, conscious effort, I still slip and say it on oc-
  casion.

So even the author herself used the word with completely gender neutral intent, but then she insists that others can't. It's like she's looking for reasons to be offended.

Not really. She is conciously trying not to use it, and admits to accidentally slipping up when she reverts to unconciously choosing biased terms. She seems to want others to do the same thing, and think about the words they are using, and their potential impact, which is a Good Thing generally.

What the author is trying to say is that this label is deeply ingrained into our cultural stereotypes but we should strive try to change the situation.

A lot of people are looking to be offended these days.

That's been true since forever. It's just now that people are offended about things like word choice rather than race, gender, religion, or parents, occupation, etc.

Either way, that's no excuse to stop thinking about things.

Douglas Hofstadter wrote a classic essay on this as well: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html

This one is right up there with A Modest Proposal.