I’ve never understood LatinX. Is it supposed to be a gender neural Latino/Latina? I’m only a Spanish beginner but I’m fairly sure Latino can be masculine and gender neutral.
“LatinX” was indeed the first attempt at a gender neutral description. “Latino” is still considered by many native speakers to be “neutral”, but the most feasible solution I’ve seen popping up is the “latine” (as in “estudiante”, “vigilante”, etc). Since it uses an explicitly non-gendered suffix, it is more correctly inclusive than the “latino”. It will take a while though, und until it is really widely adopted.
“Latino” is still considered by many native speakers to be “neutral”
So like, is there any sizeable Latin community actually calling for a gender neutral term or is this just a middle-class white people thing? Because as a white person I’ve never seen anyone push for this other than white people and it just seems like a white savior/ daddy knows best thing. But my experience is just my experience
There are some people who identify as Latinx. Pew puts it at 2-3% of Latin Americans, usually those who are non-binary.
I think the reason that it has the astroturfed white middle class vibe is that it’s really been pushed by corporate culture for whatever reason, who use it as catch all for all Latin Americans which clearly doesn’t line up with how the majority self-identify.
There is John Leguizamo, though it definitely feels like he’s trying to manage his waning popularity as a c-lister.
I swear I replied to this and then both my reply and your comment disappeared 🤷🏼♀️
Thank you for the explanation. Is “le” as an indirect object pronoun the same kind of gender neutral example? I’m really struggling with that atm. Every noun is going to be gendered except him and her?! I suck at languages.
Well, I’m no expert. I just enjoy learning languages and am a native Spanish speaker myself. With regards to the grammar I’m quit lost in my own language, but I can tell you this:
- “le” is was and always has been neutral. It and the other examples I gave are just the basis that shows that Spanish is capable of implementing gender neutrality/equality.
- I don’t know if you know any Spanish, but every single noun is already gendered. This is more about pronouns getting another third person singular pronoun, and also trying to expand the base of the language and noun or adjectives that are already gendered to include this gender neutrality + equality.
I hope I could answer your question properly, but of not, feel free to elaborate.
If someone knows a YouTube video or something about this, I’d be interested.
I don’t know about videos, but here is an article
We already have “Latin”, which has been in common use for generations.
Not to mention who gives a shit about gendered language. It’s a non issue.
Anyone who teaches at a university should be banned from trying to come up with new words, they’re invariably so removed from real life they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. Ivory tower bullshit.
I don’t know where you come from or what languages (apart from English) you might speak, but:
- “Latin” in Spanish means the same on English: Latin, as in the sense of the language spoken by the romans. I don’t think there is a single Spanish speaking country that calls latine “latin”.
- Most languages (including Spanish) have gendered nouns. German even has 3. Swedish has 2 (although those are “common” and “neutral”.
- Language evolves with time. It’s not “professors teaching new words”, it’s actually society coming up with new words. The Swedish even got themselves (relatively recently) a new third person pronoun noun specifically for a neutrally gendered/ungendered person. It is now part of the language’s standards. Even the Germans are having quite difficulty trying to make their nouns more inclusive, since (like Spanish) most nouns are used in a “masculine is the standard” (for lack of a better description).
Hope that makes it clearer.
It was first seen in online queer activist circles around 2004. You can read a little about it here. Latino is traditionally masc/neutral but English style guides also said the same about “he” when referring to someone of unknown or unspecified gender for a long time, which has largely fallen out of use for singular “they” now.
Personally, I don’t use Latinx in writing to refer to all Latinos/Latinas as polling has shown only 2-3% of people readily identify with it. But I do think you absolutely should use it if that’s how someone personally identifies.
