https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/hispanic-voters-latinx-term-523776

As left wing governments and corporations seek to reach out to Latin Americans in a more gender-neutral way, they’ve increasingly begun using the word Latinx, a term that first began to get serious use among United States academics and activists following the 2016 election of Donald Trump, but according to a new multinational poll of Latin American people, Latinx has unintentionally became one of the most homophobic slurs in Spanish and Portuguese. The incessant use of Latinx in advertising and government documents has only made the word more popular as a slur in only a few years. No Latin Americans polled referred to themselves as Latinx, the vast majority called themselves Hispanic or Latino even among the LGBT. What's most shocking is Latinx ranked first on the list of most offensive words according to Latin American people, most respondents said they wouldn't support a politician or organization that uses the term however there's monetary incentives for businesses and politicians to use Latinx, many Latin American governments are trying to phase out the use of gendered language and are offering tax deductions for the use of Latinx.

  • NewAccountWhoDis [she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Yeah I think Latine is cooler anyway, Latinx apparently has some interesting possible origins including possibly feminist protests in Puerto Rico that I've seen somewhere on here before but at the end of the day it's still confusing for most speakers to use.

      • NewAccountWhoDis [she/her]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        Journalist Yara Simón, in her History Channel piece, quoted David Bowles, a Mexican-American linguist and professor, who suggested that it was inspired by Latin American feminist protests in the 1970s, where protesters Xed-out words ending in "os" to signify a rejection of the masculine as default. Both agree that it became more popular in the 2010s when it was adopted by the LGBTQ community and that it's more used by people of Latin American descent currently living in the United States than it is by people living in Latin America itself.

        I don't know where the original piece is tho

        Oh found some tweets by him https://twitter.com/DavidOBowles/status/1076942516983865345?s=20