don’t feel comfortable with you using it to speak to or about us

This actually is relevant, but wasn’t part of your initial statement. If you don’t like people using the term to refer to you then people should absolutely make an effort to not use that term when referencing you.

Saying there’s some mental gymnastics on my part is a bit of stretch, it’s how the word is defined in the dictionary. All I needed was to read. There’s no disrespect here, if you don’t like it then using the term to refer to you would be disrespectful, but I haven’t done so.

I don’t see the issue with using the term “guys” in the plural when referring to a group regardless of sex. That would align with the definition of the word. I’m pretty sure that’s how they meant it.