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.
Latino and man are both gender neutral in the right contexts. Mankind for example.
And in plurals specifically (say, when you are talking about a large group of people, like maybe a cultural identity) "-os" is the gender neutral Spanish form. Everything has a gender in Spanish anyway, it's just a linguistic rule.
If you want that to change, you do it within the overall structure of a language. Like in English we've started avoiding ending professions with "-man", so fireman for example becomes fire fighter. Throwing an x at the end of the word just doesn't work for Spanish and is hard to pronounce. Again if you must, latine is clearly the better term, there's nothing to "try out".
I'm curious, are you a native spanish speaker or from a latine background?
I agree that Latine is preferable and also I support any attempt to develop further gender neutral language.
Latinx originally showing up, particularly when written makes complete sense when aiming for shorthand and works well in North America where a lot of folx in the Latin community are bilingual. It's also inclusive of people with nonbinary gender identies.
Not really, I'm half Portuguese (as in, my mother is from Portugal). But I mainly just look at it from an autistic standpoint of - that's just not how the language works. It would be the same in Portuguese.
Again, latine covers all than better and is actually pronounceable.
Why? "Folks" is literally never a gendered word. It's basically the same as latine vs latinx, a perfectly sensible genderless word vs "just throw an x in it". There's no good reason for it.
I agree with you about folx, but I'd say Latinx/Latine is far more sensible relatively since there is a legitimate gender association there
Yeah, like I said "folx" is really just icing when you feel like using it or if someone requests you do.
Removed by mod
Language works however humans agree to use it. All of grammar is essentially guidelines and it develops over time. Language is literally never perfect and that's why it's cool.
Agreed, but I'm not going to let perfect get in the way of good. Both can coexist.
It's an innocuous way to signal purposeful inclusion of trans and non-binary genders. It's a flourish on top of the word. I'm never going to be pissed if someone uses "folks" instead, but I like to use it when I think to.
The queer community has a long history of language hacking. When society attempts to systemically erase you, then every aspect of it becomes fair game for remixing.
Yes, but it also falls into patterns that help keep things consistent and understandable. And again, pronounceable. "Latinx" is not really possible in Spanish pronunciation. At best it would be "latin-equis" which is awkward. And the pronunciation "latin-eks" is just not Spanish at all, it's English through and through.
They don't need to. There's no good reason for "latinx" to exist.
That implies "folks" excludes them, which it doesn't. It seems weird to say their inclusion necessitates a new word as if they're too different to be included in the existing word, which they aren't. At least it's pronounced the same, but still.
Sure it is. X can sometimes make the same sound as it does in english although it's uncommon. Regardless, it's most common in North America and I can understand why latine might be easier in other regions.
That is not something anyone who is not a spanish speaker really gets to decide. It's used primarily in north america and that's fine. Puerto Rico also has hermanx and niñx in use, particularly within the queer community.
LGBTQ+ people utilize it and also it literally hurts no one to use it.
No it does not imply that. I literally said in my comment that it doesn't.