Is calling 'people' 'folk' part of gender ideology rewriting language norms or is it separate?

I'm obviously an outlier. I use 'folks' quite often, but am from the SE of England!

blokes.

This.

It's always been a common phrase where I'm from, (NW). You've heard the phrase "There's nowt as queer as folk"? I use it all the time.

Scottish here. If someone asked me " how are your folks?", they mean how are my parents and family. That's the usage here. Nothing trendy, woke or hipster about it.
Elsewhere, it clearly has different connotations. Much like the word "fanny".

How to people pronounce folx?
Does it rhyme with bollocks or blokes?

Absolutely agree (Scotland here too). It’s very common here. I’ve used it for decades and don’t give any further thought to it.

Yes, that’s how they’d sound to me too. I’m from Southern England.

'Folk' (yes, I've noticed it being used a lot by TRAs) is interesting in that until recently it got used not just as a variant on 'people' but specifically with a suggestion of 'kinsfolk'. Going to see your folks - there's a suggestion of something closer than just the neighbours, certainly something different from humanity en masse.

Which makes me wonder if using it is sometimes part of the whole 'chosen family' narrative, which has potential to get very sinister.

I see a lot of use of "folk" when talking about the trans community. It also seems to be the done thing to refer to trans and non-binary "kiddos". Not children.

Well I really don't know y'all

Whenever I hear the word folk or folks, I immediately think of elves, pixies etc.

I had a course where the instructor called everyone folks but spelt it folx in all the written stuff, which felt ridiculous

Hell yes!

I'm not making any assumption that an individual using folk/folks, whatever the context, is a TRA.

I'm saying that there are patterns of usage that are identifiably different in this particular group of British people (mostly young, mostly highly-online, involved in strongly American-influenced social justice movements and particularly those around gender ideology and trans rights) compared to the patterns of usage you see from other groups or from British people more broadly. (I can't comment on how their usage compares to usage in other countries, though.)

Noticing patterns of how a word tends to be used by one group compared to others doesn't mean claiming that this group always does this, this group always does that, and any time someone says x it means they're in this group. It means noticing general trends, tendencies one way or another, looking at how stuff seems to average out and how particular usages cluster.

If you think I'm claiming that the moment "folk[s]" falls from someone's lips, you can immediately and accurately assign them to a specific social group, then you're misinterpreting what I'm saying.

I use folk because I’ve always read a lot and lived in different continents and because it’s a useful nice word that people everywhere use. For real you cannot make this assumption that someone using folks is a TRA!! There’s folk tales, the little folk, gentlefolk in modern and old speak (Shakespeare used it), I hear thanks folks in corporate speak at work in both hemispheres and multiple other common usages. Others on this thread refer to more.

I find peeps really cringe!

I use folks at work as opposed to 'guys' - just trying to make a conscience effort to avoid male centric language.

Edit for context - London based creative industry profession.

But the reason it worked as a title was because the phrase was spread well-known, so you have the play on words.

I'm another northerner who uses "folk" fairly regularly, even though I was once called pretentious on here for using it. Or at least I did until I read this thread, will think twice about using it now lest PEOPLE think I'm being woke rather than pretentious.

I've noticed more people use "folk" recently. I thought it was to replace "guys" (ie using a male word to describe a mixed group of people), so I see it as a positive change.

Yep I'd agree with that. There's a lot of subtlety and nuance around word choice, and the same word can signify different things in different contexts and from different people.

Being of Northern extraction, "folk" is a normal word to me. Usually said in a phrase such as "Folk don't know they're born!" or "There's nowt so strange as folk".

But the Wokerati amongst my acquaintance definitely use "folx" as a way of signalling their virtue referring to people of all gender persuasions. I see it as a useful warning that the content it's used in is likely to be absolute twaddle.

I spent some pivotal years of my life in Norfolk.

I use folk quite a bit. I am not making any sort of political statement, just saying the thing that naturally comes next.