I didn't have male mates, because I had as much trouble with boys as girls, and the guys avoided me except for a few.
They'd call me a les.b1an, say that I dated my best friend who's a girl and one of my male buddies, say that I went into stalls with one or both of them, and contradicted themselves on multiple occassions. The boys at middle school used to take my bookbag and run with it, and I used ot chase them. but when I didn't, they stopped; they'd hold my bookbag until the bell rang, but they never got into it, so I knew it was fine.
And ignoring it eventually worked, over a few years of hard work; I'm more or less ignored now, thought there are still a few who cling to the silly les.b1an rumor simply because I've never had a boyfriend.
But that was last year, and they dropepd it quick when I never even bothered to find out who started the rumors. XD