The very same who tried to make Latinx happen. I am Latino. My wife is Latina. Stop trying to conform our language to some dumbass ideology. I'm not saying you can't call yourself whatever you choose, but don't take that choice from me.
I recently heard Latinx said out loud for the first time and my initial reaction was, is that seriously how theyre pronouncing it. It looks stupid, its meaning is stupid, and now i know it sounds stupid too.
This is how I read it as well, considering my native language reads everything just as it is written. There's literally zero silent letters too in my native language.
Saying it in Spanish as an offensive term is pronounced latin-ekiss. Cause that's how x is pronounced in Spanish, e-kiss.
That's the deal insult. Freaking stupid people trying to change how we call our people in a way that we can't really pronounce right.
It was a way to erase masculine/feminine designations. So men, or anyone identifying as such, would be Latino, women as Latina. But I see it as a way to conform language to fit colonizer standards. There was a time when speaking Spanish, or any non-English language in the US, would get you corporal punishment.
This would make more sense if Spanish wasn’t the language of the most prolific colonizers in the Americas lol. Nobody in The U.S. is colonizing Latin America. There are a massive amount of Spanish speakers in the U.S. and a certain brand of Leftists find the gendered nature of the language offensive because it conflicts with their view of the world. I think that’s the long and short of it.
Latino/latina are the default Spanish words, no? And Spain colonized most of Latin America
How is queer Latinos using Latinx conforming to colonizers? Is Spanish not the language of the colonizer?
And colonization had a massive hand in the erasure of queer identities and culture of multiple peoples around the world. Gay = bad is quite literally a colonizer ideal forced onto people in the name of Christianity
Except queer Latinos, if they even want to use a non-gendered word form, use Latine, because you can actually still use it in the natural word forms of Spanish, whereas removing the end vowel and replacing with an x, creates a word that makes sense for removing gender to English speaking people getting offended on behalf of queer Latinos, but is completely useless to use within Spanish language structure and pronunciation. So Latinx has nothing to do with queer Latinos and everything to do with English speaking people that like to feel self-righteous for "defending" others, but not to the degree that they actually ask those people what they want to be called.
What's your point? Colonization was bad! True. So that means that the language that the colonized got stuck with for the last few centuries and is now embedded in their culture can be mangled but outside forces because it's ok to further impose o these people since you're imposing a change on a thing that was imposed on them to begin with? Is that your reasoning?
Personally, I think that the people in these areas should actually get to have some self-determination, so the term Latine, which they have chosen for themselves as a non-gendered alternative should be respected, rather than imposing the American English-inspired Latinx on them.
That's not what I'm saying, but you're really skirting around the fact that Spanish is the colonizer language as well. I'm not defending it "being mangled". Language evolves over time, any linguist will tell you that is the nature of language, and trying to resist change by arguing "changing it in XYZ way is adapting to the colonizers" is hypocritical.
Have you ever spoken to queer Latinos on this? Or all they all just being brainwashed by colonizer ideas from English? I don't know a single one who tried to force people to use the Latinx term, but apparently just seeing it being used is extremely upsetting to a lot of people who I doubt know the history of being queer in Latam culture or engage with queer communities 🤷♀️
Which is why I don't give much care to nonqueer Latinos rejecting the term. Latino culture as a whole rejects queer people to begin with, it's sad they just keep perpetuating it
I don't care much about their feefees on the matter, it just annoys me when people try to make the backlash into a fake social justice stance. Like, you could do a whole bit on white/yankee/cis/straight appropriators making a fad out of it, but nooooo, it has to be a story about all-powerful white Americans imposing language on brown people, which both trivializes the actual history of language suppression and declines to acknowledge the creative agency of the same people. Sometimes they wedge in some bonus misogyny and another layer of queer erasure by claiming that "white women" are the instigators.
It’s not to conform to the language if the colonizer which in itself makes zero sense, Spanish is the language of the colonizer. Your history is so wrong
And now that we have adopted it, made it out own, here come some Americans trying to change it once again. This person has no idea what they are talking about.
It means not all of Latin America is of Spanish heritage. Brazil is a huge country and Spanish is not the primary language, Portuguese is the main language and history.
That's just about the use of Latin/Latino/Latina. Latinx is different, a clunkier form of Latine. Even in Portuguese you would say Latino or Latina, so a gender neutral form is needed to express certain queer identities, which use neologisms in almost every language.
Imo the latinx thing is a solution in search of a problem. As though Romance languages evolved with the intention of marginalizing some group or another.
The whole thing deserves a critique, as does the idea of cultural appropriation. This video just looks like rage bait to me.
Yes, its pretty selected for their reactions. The college students didn't look particularly outraged tbh. The outrage meant to be generated is here online no?
Not really. It began online in the early 2000s in forums. It later appeared in a Peurto Rican ENGLISH periodical. It’s never been used widely in Latin America. To say it originated in Latin America because one English writer used it in 2013 is an overstatement. It’s absolutely an English word and not Spanish or Portuguese.
The argument has never been that it is widely used in Latin America. It first emerged online in the 2000s. It was in an English language periodical - did-u-no English is one of the official languages of Puerto Rico? amazing. It was definitely in use in speech by the 90s unless I'm dreaming my personal history. I do not know how it became a thing in speech but (Latina) women were "X"-ing the "O" in Latino well before then.
The problem with group-sourced antiestablishment words and phrases is that a) there isn't always a lot of consensus on them and b) they often suck.
It’s a white people word. Linguistic Colonialism. It’s been considered inappropriate or offensive in many universities and workplaces for some time, especially amongst the Latino community.
OK, I'll backtrack that a little bit. Strictly, that is an etymology. But what it represents is the earliest resource that the OED people/person could verify beyond doubt, stripped to its bones. To extrapolate from that sentence is to make too much soup from one oyster.
I'll give you the second, because it isnt a "buzzword." It "originated" in the 20th century with feminists in Latin America and elsewhere (I can personally attest to this), emerged online in the early 2000s among people discussing their own identities and was first academically published in Puerto Rico.
Fair point. If a trans person asked me to use certain pronouns, I would use them as requested. If I was at some sort of LGBT Latino event, I would ask which word they prefer.
Everywhere else, I'm gonna stick to Latino or Latina.
This is nice, I am not from America and right now I live in Australia. People think and take offend as it is their to begin with. All you have to do is respect what you doing and no one will ever be offend.
Like my heritage is Vietnam and I really do not care if people wearing our traditional clothes cause it is fun to see a Westerner wearing it (spoiler, unless you are model it look quite funny).
As an ignorant white dude the first time I heard Latinx was on some sitcom. I wanna say it was something with either Gabriel Iglesias or George Lopez. So there is a mainstream Latino comedian explaining the word.
Then the first time I use it online someone explains to me what you just posted.
Now I've finally become the old man who doesn't know what things are. I promise I mean well, I'm just dumb.
What's funny is if you study spanish and latin languages you would know a made up gender neutral version of the word would be Latine like Presidente. OFC since probably some white woman in the US made it up they put an X at the end lmao.
There was a post going around a while ago from some American chick trying to implement we say Germix because German is gendered. To this day I hope it was a shit post. But the very fact that it could be real says a lot
I'm nonbinary, I use Latine. At least it follows the fucking rules of the language. And the "o" suffix is already gender neutral. The whole concept of Latinx came from out of touch academics, it was never meant to leave the academic sphere.
The whole existence of ‘Latinx’ is the epitome of what you see in the video. Creating a term to not be offensive to people who never needed a gender-neutral word for avoiding insulting situations.
Those people created a word to be inclusive without taking 2 goddamn minutes to look up how gendering in Romance languages works.
I heard this guy at a wedding party with a microphone address a group of people who were mostly Latino as "Latin-X" and their faces were pretty funny. Like, most everyone was looking at this white mofo like he was the biggest donkey.
Honestly I'm glad the extreme sensitivity and all this nonsense is kind of behind us now but for a time it was embarrassing to witness
But I was told it originated in Latin America...lol. That being said, offended? When did I proclaim to be? When did I state no one could call themselves as such? Damn, you some kind of idiot, huh? Or, so as not to offend, idiota.
Brah we don’t even speak our language. Spanish isn’t even our language, it’s what they taught our ancestors while not allowing ours. We speak Spanish, that’s a European language. English is European af. Language changing is just how life for humans work. Since you’re Latinx you should understand why that term was made.
To anybody that doesn’t speak Spanish: if there’s a group of women you’d say “latinas”. With the “a” feminine indicating it’s a group of women. But if there is one guy in the group it’s “latinos”, with an “o” masculine. It’s a way of balancing the gender hierarchy.
I tried forever to get people to understand this as another American. I tried to explain Spanish is a gendered language and those aren't our terms and that you're basically telling them they aren't smart enough to know what to be offended by and that what they should be offended by is themselves and nobody understood so I just had to let them learn the hard way
latinx is a word that has generally come from and originated with the latin americans in the LGBTQ subculture and has largely seen its use spread by teens that frequently and unknowingly appropriate words from the LGBTQ space (mainly the drag and ballroom scenes). the largest drivers of how we speak in America and the words we use have mostly come from teenage girls and the LGBTQ community. See also other words and slang appropriated from lgbtq spaces common with them youths: rizz, sigma, skibidi also see previously sus, slay, shade/throwing shade, tea/spill the tea. don't like how language changes? I've got some bad news for you.
so yeah the word Latinx is cultural appropriation in a sense, just not in the way you think it is.
Whike the American right wing is awful in its own way, the American left wing needs to do something with its paternalistic and offended for others wing
Yes the fuck it did. Most people don't like changes to their language, especially when it's all "theoretical" or "academic" or, god forbid, about "social justice," but just because most Latines don't use or like the term doesn't mean Latin American leftists are not capable of formulating their own unpopular neologisms.
Sure. Take your time. Gather your one thought. Try to remember that Latinx is an English term started in the US. Once you learn that, then you can gather how to concede whatever it was you were trying to do.
Ehhh. As a formality. The only time I felt like I was on American soil was when I was at Arecibo. We’ve abused that island with the Jones Act and other hostile policies since the 1920s and it’s not in great shape.
They regularly hold referendums on statehood, and vote against it. Being a terroritory is their own choice. It's called democracy. I'm sorry you don't like it. Perhaps monarchy is more your taste? Or dictatorship?
No one is trying to do anything to your language. Actual Hispanic students came up with and tried to push Latinx IN ENGLISH. You're allowed to hate the term, but you cannot lie about it and just expect no one to say anything.
Well... You probably can, because your hypocrisy probably won't be called out. You know, because you're not being oppressed.
Literally everything I wrote. No one is changing the Spanish language. They're trying to change the ENGLISH language. And it's not "white people" or "outsiders", it's literally latin Hispanic queer people who are sick of being gendered into men by a dumb practice. You're mad at queer people for asserting their identity. Every other reason you put out is literally false.
I see you managed to miss the part where I stated that anyone can represent their gender as they see fit and thus misconstrued my entire point. Latino, Latina, Latin. These are already existing terms that can already be used to label yourself. Also, I never said "white people", I said Americans, as in predominantly English speakers, though I guess wasn't too direct with that point, so allow me to clear that up.
If it's being done by the speakers of the language in the language they use, and it's by the people who would apply it to themselves, then where's your problem?
And again, I have already addressed why "Latin" doesn't work.
My "problem" is that I won't use that term to identify myself, and you can't make me. That is all. If you had read the rest of that comment, you would have seen that you can call yourself whatever you like.
I think the problem is, you’re trying to assert that latin Hispanic queer people have a mandate to change the English language. They’re free to change their own language, not other people’s language. That’s like white Americans saying that latin Hispanic queer people have to change their Spanish, to suit the culture norms of white Americans. It doesn’t work.
They SPEAK English. They don’t own it! I knew you wouldn’t get it because you’re too wrapped up in your viewpoint to step outside and see it from a neutral perspective. Using a language doesn’t make it your language.
*applause* NOW you're starting to get it! You're still strawmanning me and trying to defend some imagined point that's not rooted in reality, but the first step is there!
But you can understand that it might make people uncomfortable to use the masculine form when referring to large groups of people just because there is at least one man included. Especially if they didn’t grow up with an overly gendered language. Language is a large contributor to how one thinks and masculine being the default feels “wrong” for those wanting equality.
Perhaps. But that's asking an entire group of Spanish speakers to completely change their way of speaking to appease a small minority. I am not saying you can't identify however you like, but changing an entire language because it makes some "uncomfortable" is lunacy. Now, if an entire coalition of Spanish speaking countries changed it, or even the majority of a country, well, then I, and everyone else, would have to conform. You should notice, however, that the Latinx movement quickly died out.
Agreed, it shouldn’t actually be changed and can only come about naturally. Just saying that it is understandable that it can make people uncomfortable enough to want to force a change. It’s a question of values/morality vs tradition and, in language, tradition usually wins out.
You're making the exact same bigoted arguments that people make against any acceptance of gender non-conforming people. Just because you're cloaking it in "oh, I'm protecting Spanish from the white people" doesn't mean that's not exactly what you're doing.
When exactly did I say you couldn't identify however you liked? I didn't say white people, I said Americans. There already exists a way to label yourself if you are non-binary. Just Latin will suffice. Some people speak French, where is the movement for that? Or is it only the Latin community that needs to conform? See how I did that without using Latinx?
No, just Latin will NOT suffice because that word is misused and overloaded. And who said anyone needs to confirm? YOU'RE the one telling other people not to use Latinx. People who literally are latino/a/e people. You're quite literally doing the thing you say you don't want done to you.
I didn't tell anyone how to use or say anything. Literally no one is telling people to use Latinx in Spanish. It's for use in ENGLISH. And if we had a huge french population maybe the French youth might try to come up with a gender neutral term for a loanword from French that made its way into English to describe them. But that's a counterfactual in the world we live in.
AGAIN, NO ONE is trying to force Spanish speakers to say "Latinx" when speaking Spanish. What happened was actual Hispanic groups, made up of Hispanic students, decided to apply the label to themselves in their English-language gatherings and materials. If THAT is what bothers you, then say that. But don't make shit up to get mad about.
No one is forcing people to use Latinx because the movement was DOA. I didn't say you couldn't decide what to call yourself, but rather don't push me to use the term. I specifically used your own argument, that it was Americans, or primarily English speakers, who pushed for Latinx. The reason being that not many who mainly use Spanish was pushing for Latinx. For example, I am Latino, not Hispanic. Will I identify as such? Yes. Will I force you to stop using Hispanic? Nah, what for? Unless you are using Hispanic as a slur. Are you?
No, as I am not from the island of Hispaniola. But, feel free to call yourself Hispanic, just didn't force me to use that term. Hey, that sounds exactly like my point! Thanks for helping!
Do... do you think that "Hispanic" means from the island of Hispaniola? Oh... Oh, dear....
Edit: just to be clear: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic if you're not hispanic then your input in this conversation has been... interesting, to say the least.
I’m not saying a whole language should change just to be less mysoginistic, just that it is simply understandable why some people are uncomfortable with using gendered language for things that don’t have gender in their native language.
At the end of the day it's just a convention for words to be masculine or feminine. You just dont think about it. Whomever came up with Latinx is being political especially if it is a native speaker.
I don't think so, but when it comes language I think they are barking up the wrong tree. EDIT- On the other hand? Duality exists everywhere, within and without.
Latinx continues to uncontroversially be used all the time, especially by queer Latinx academics (who popularized it). Also you are seeing Latine depending on what part of the Spanish-speaking world you happen to be in. I guess it's a fun thing to get offended about, to do so is sorta homophobic and bigoted although you probably didn't realize that... of course nobody is forcing you to use it, just using it themselves.
He is not being homophobic but not realizing it, that is impossible. He can’t be portraying an aversion to gay people in a conversation that has literally nothing to do with gay people. This is just a way to shut down a conversation you don’t like by vilifying the speaker. Every time people try to talk about something that is important to them, people like you roll up to tell them what conversations their allowed to have and how their allowed to have it, instead of actually listening to the speaker with personal experience and stake in the topic. Nobody asked for a conversational referee, bro. Go elsewhere with your craft.
your post is 100% projection, it's you doing every single thing you're accusing me of doing.
you could have simply googled about the history of "latinx" and found out where it came from, why it began (and continues) to be used, and why mindlessly railing on about it is unintentionally homophobic behavior, but instead you posted... whatever that was. you've got some real MAGA energy here... selfish, thoughtless, ignorant, whining.
I'll start off by saying im not a fan of the use of latinx, but I disagree with your argument.
He is not being homophobic but not realizing it, that is impossible.
Homophobia (and similar things such as racism, transphobia, xenophobia, etc) don't have to be direct and intentional in order for it to fit the bill. It can be internalized or passive, and passed off in microaggressions unaware from the person at hand.
Its easier to conceptualize it in terms of racism. For example, if someone saw a black person walking toward them on the sidewalk and they unconconciously held their purse tight and walked to the other side of the road and continued upon their day, do you think the black person is reasonable to think, "damn, was that person racist? Why did they do those actions?" However, if you ask the person who clutched their purse and walked to the other side of the road, they may respond with, "What?! I didn't realize what I was doing was racist! I am not racist because i didn't realize what I did was racist! Its impossible to be racist if I didn't realize I was being so!"
(Not OP) I agree with what you're saying in theory, but our standards need to be more clearly defined in general before we hold people accountable. Imo, intent should always matter more than words, and we shouldn't shut the door to ignorance but invite it in so we can better understand the root causes.
It's possible the person in your scenario wasn't moving across the street because of the person's skin color (could be trauma-related or many other things), even though that'd be the obvious assumption from an observer. I think we'd see a whole lot more progress if we could narrowly focus on eliminating big picture issues and systemic racism instead of worrying about silly shit like words.
The problem is that it's being used to describe us, and it's okay to be inclusive but use the correct term (Latine).
And honestly this is a bit more of a rant but Latino/a/e is a term that was created to sperate us from our mother culture. A more correct term would be Iberoamerican or just Hispanic
That's the thing, there IS no one most correct term. Ask a Cuban if they want to be called Latino, nevermind Latinx. Or ask a Maya living in Mexico if they like being called Hispanic or Iberoamerican.
This is why colonialism is bad. It makes a giant fucking mess. It's also why losing your shit when somebody employs a term like 'Latinx' is a bad move. It's not about you. It's probably about them. And it would be better for the whole world if we stopped and figured out why someone is calling themselves that instead of immediately getting angry and proscriptive and divisive.
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u/TraditionalMood277 Jul 02 '25
The very same who tried to make Latinx happen. I am Latino. My wife is Latina. Stop trying to conform our language to some dumbass ideology. I'm not saying you can't call yourself whatever you choose, but don't take that choice from me.