“Is The Term 'Latinx' Inclusive or Imposed?” Opinion piece in the wake of a new Pew Research report showing that almost half of U.S. Latino adults say they’ve heard of the term “Latinx,” yet very few — 4% — have used it to identify themselves.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/is-the-term-latinx-inclusive-or-imposed_n_66e983dee4b06998fbed21d5
Latinx shows an ignorance of how the Spanish language works.
Latino is already gender-neutral. The actual gender of the person is undefined unless specified. A defined way to clearly specify a male person is to say “hombre latino.”
Oddly, there are English examples of the same principle.
English has examples of when “man” means “person” of any gender (“mankind” “manmade” etc.)
Here are some more obvious examples of how Latino vs Latina works:
Landlord vs landlady. Landlord is gender-neutral. A man or a woman can be a landlord. While a landlady is only a woman. Just like Latina.
Actor vs actress.
Comedian vs comedienne.
Etc.
“Latinx” is from English-speakers imposing their misunderstanding that an entire other language and culture has baked-in sexism, but they don’t even know what they’re doing.
Every single person I know who is a member of the Hispanic/latin communities absolutely hate the term Latinx. They don’t like the idea of one term to lump such a large and fair reaching population into one singular term. There are dozens of Latin countries across north, south, Central America and Spain I think is in this category.
And yet *almost* every LGBTQ+ Hispanic/latin person I know is fine with it.
It’s not used for everyone, it’s used by predominantly queer people who want the term. Personally I call people what they want.
Latino. Latina. Or Latinx. I think the people you’re talking to fundamentally misunderstand the point of it and WHO is actually using it.
My professional experience with the word “Latinx” is with primarily white women, and recent Latina college graduates, in marketing departments insisting very vehemently that it be used in broad messaging.
The problem with Latin”X” I’ve heard is that you have a letter (x) that is not properly translated in Spanish. The term only works for English speakers so it’s already not inclusive of the full group it’s trying to reach just on that. A newer term I’ve started hearing has been Latine (pronounced Latin - AY) that solves for that. However, I don’t think it’s right for groups outside of a culture and not familiar with the nuances to makes new rules or claims for how that culture should be identified. A majority of Hispanic and Latin voices have said they dislike the term, have never heard it, don’t get why, or don’t use it, and that honestly should be the end of the debate.
Pro
I was just in a conversation about this because I used the term Latinx and was read the riot act. However, I took the time to look it up and I understand why some see it as an imperialistic or colonizing term. I won’t use it again.
Ever since the election, the media are accidentally admitting they knew “Latino” was gender-neutral the entire time, thus proving “Latinx” is an imposed term.
When discussing the results of the election, all of a sudden we are seeing “Latino men” said everywhere. Not Latinos. Latino *men.* They knew the entire time that “Latinx” was unnecessary.
This means “Latinx,” an anglosphere term for a non-anglo language, excludes gender identity, it does not include, because “Latina” was still accepted.
This is a wild theory but “Latinx” may have changed the results of the election. The biggest change in percentage of Democratic to Republican support came from Latino men (hombres latinos).
(Date: Oct 30) 'Latinx' Label Is So Despised by Latinos It's Moving Them to Trump: Study
https://www.newsweek.com/latinx-latino-voters-donald-trump-1977268