yup, struggle session time
edit: no one is right, everyone is wrong :^)
edit 2: this post is actually dedicated to Amy Goodman, please stop trying to sound cool grandma
No, I won't. As a non binary language and linguistics student who is also Latine.
I prefer to use Latine, because it makes the most sense within the language and phonetically. I can get why the "x" is odd. I'll use it when writing sometimes if I'm being lazy but never in speech. The whole discourse about how it's supposedly some US imposition on us is revisionist nonsense. There have always, always been nonbinary people in Latin America.
Of course people haven't heard of it. Of course if you poll people they will lean conservative. A LOT of Latine culture is plagued by machismo and catholicism. We are incredibly conservative. That there is division in the community doesn't mean you should default to siding with the overwhelmingly conservative sidebecause they're louder and larger in numbers. Let us figure out our own shit, we're on that, but stop acting like the addition of a gender neutral alternative is some perversion of the language because it supposedly came from the US. What you are doing is repeating Latin American conservative talking points (replace "the US" with "the devil") and are silencing people that should be your allies. You should give a shit about us.
Spanish is an imposed, colonialist language anyway. Our history is colonialism. We adapt and we change our language to serve us better because that's the entire point of language. Language is meant to be flexible and exists so we can express ourselves. I can't express myself in a language that denies my existence, so I change it. It's 100% fine and the RAE can kiss my ass.
All I gotta say is thank god the two languages I speak, German and Russian, are not widely spoken in the US so our attempts at doing gender inclusivity aren't met with American struggle sessions about imposing American values on the world. For the record, in Austria the usage of the Binnen I is exceedingly common in both leftist circles and is becoming pretty common in wider society too. With the Binnen I, instead of writing "students (m) and students (f)" as "Studenten und Studentinnen", you write StudentInnen. People also often include non-binary people by using a "gap", writing Student_innen or Student*innen. It's been a thing since the 1980s, gradually increasing in popularity.
I don't speak Spanish and am not part of the community so obviously I'll defer to others about latinx vs latine. No dog in that fight. I just wanted to express solidarity because all the Anglos in the thread talking about the imposition of English language norms, like the rest of us can't come to the idea that using gender neutral language is beneficial to women and queer people ourselves, is infuriating.
EDIT: Oh no oh no, fucking Anglos making the city write RadfahrerInnen (cyclist (m/f)) on a sign , poor us!!!
Ahhh, German checking in to get you the struggle session you deserve, I have problems talking about non-binary people in German when they're not there or don't speak German. Obviously when they're available one could always just ask them, but what pronouns would one use for people who use they/them pronouns? "Es" - "It" seems pretty dehumanising. Or how would one refer to a non-binary doctor? Arzt and Ärztin are both heavily gendered, and there is not really a neutral term.
I've been following the discussions and tbh I don't think there's a consensus yet. Same with non-binary people in Russian - a non-binary person I follow on Twitter uses он/а [s/he], I've seen someone else use оно [it], which yes comes across as dehumanising to me as well but if that's what they prefer I can't yell NO YOU CAN'T!! at them. I think some people just continue using he/she, or prefer people to switch within a conversation. I don't really wanna do a struggle session about it because I'm not non-binary lmao, again I'll just defer to them. I'm sure as acceptance spreads, one form will win out eventually, as it always is with language.
My point is simply that these conversations are taking place in non-Anglo communities - it's not like every non-binary person has given up on German/Russian and decided that being non-binary is an Anglo imposition.
I've seen struggle sessions that we shouldn't use it to refer to plants/animals as they have rights or whatever, and so there should be another separate new pronoun for non-human flora and fauna
Animate/inanimate noun class distinctions aren't unheard of in language, but I don't think they'll manage that one haha. Afaik flora typically fall on the inanimate side too. Maybe if they advocate for it as part of a push for veganism, anti climate change, animal rights.
It still wouldn't be the weirdest thing in the history of English pronouns. I'll never be over English borrowing they/them from the Norse. It's extremely uncommon for languages to borrow function words (pronouns, prepositions, etc), it's very interesting that they/them stuck.
The natural solution along these lines would be Ärztx, right?
The natural solution is Ärzt_in :) Can't diss the usage of x when some of us are putting in underscores
But you can't even pronounce that. You already have that in Spanish since before I was even born
Well you still have the problem which is that it implies you can only be an Ärzt or an Ärztin. So it's inappropriate for enbys. Example
hispanic is gender neutral already
Stahp, that is not a synonym for Latine. Won't anybody think of the Brazilians.
i just learned that alot of your founding fathers literally would do slave raids
I'm hispanicker than you, shut up.
Spanish is an imposed, colonialist language anyway.
Found the American Hispanic
It is, though? Like do you think the Tainos and the Caribs were speaking Spanish?
Do you think the Cherokees were speaking English? No, but if you suggested this idea to an American it would not resonate with them.
We make shit up in English all the time, though. English is more gender neutral than English. You just took the already gender neutral pronoun they and made it apply more broadly. Spanish is literally just male and female with a default male that even a lot of cis women have been rightfully critiquing for years.
The comment was more directed at the bit I quoted. Can you even imagine people in America trying to convince regular folks of anything by saying English is a colonial language imposed on them by the dastardly Brits
we're not trying to create a framing for a propaganda campaign here, just speaking facts between comrades who should understand that pointing out Spanish is a colonial language is a simple historical fact
Sure, like English is, but this doesn't mean anything to Americans. It says something to American Hispanics because they're a minority from the US that often isn't that connected to the original culture and sees the issue through the lens of being a racial minority.
Yeah I see where you're coming from. I've had this argument many times and I suppose that the idea I meant to express was that Spanish colonists brought both their language and their ideas of masculinity and femininity and imposed them on people. But there isn't as much arguing over the sanctity of the English language.
Do you guys really think the Brits oppressed you by making you speak English?
i went five days without posting obvious flame, i had to go all out
All you had to do was make the Anglos entitled to other languages. You did it. Next time try veganism.
pol pot x unabomber comic i stole from an unironic khmer rouge apologist
https://hexbear.net/post/19129
i wish this blew up like the wtc
eh, there's better ways to force people to think of complicated things with nuance, but who knows, maybe you'll get lucky.
Good to know only US Hispanics are dealing with this issue and that they're a socioeconomical monolith, very cool.
That you educate yourself, this is something I personally have seen being discussed and done by feminist and progressive groups in my own country.
It's different when it comes to the country since it's, you know, a country. But if you want to call it that way to own the "woke" queers and people that don't fit the forced binaries in Latin America because you're a Smart, Good Leftist, go ahead.
Then you'll know gender neutral language is even more controversial in Latin America and not majority supported even in left circles, so do you really need me to get a poll from there?
I'll be real with you. I don't know any enbies and I'm neutral towards the idea of gender neutral language itself. The whole framing around this does come from the US, and it is a huge imposition, and the fact that there are some people in Latin America who adopt this regardless of this fact doesn't do much for me. All I know is I'm allowed to be mad at the fact that bougie hipsters from America have more of a voice than 99% of regular people put together, and I don't care what anyone else thinks.
Then you’ll know gender neutral language is even more controversial in Latin America and not majority supported even in left circles, so do you really need me to get a poll from there?
Women having the choice of abortion is also controversial in Latin America and you'd be surprised how many so-called progressives here would believe in some conservative trash while claiming to give a fuck, but here we are, having to be nuanced, cus your average anglo cannot be bothered to shut up and listen.
I’ll be real with you. I don’t know any enbies and I’m neutral towards the idea of gender neutral language itself. Then why oh why do you think your opinion has any weight to a bunch of people you don't even know about?!
The whole framing around this does come from the US, and it is a huge imposition, and the fact that there are some people in Latin America who adopt this regardless of this fact doesn’t do much for me. All I know is I’m allowed to be mad at the fact that bougie hipsters from America have more of a voice than 99% of regular people put together, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks. Don't care where it comes from, the reasoning (of including people outside of the o/a is something I respect, as you should as a so-called leftist) and "the imposition" (maybe having to think about your convo or, gasp, apologize if someone would prefer a more neutral term!) and you're acting like a bougie hipster yourself. Queer people are regular people too, we exist outside of your dipshit liberal acquaintances.
You think hispanics outside of anglo countries are using latinx more? They definitely aren't. The word only really works in English.
Progressive latinx are trying to make that stick, because most latinx people are awful to queer people and take every small change as outrageous.
And they are completely disregarding the Spanish language in doing so. There are more sensible alternatives like "latine" or just "latin", but they decided to go with the one that isn't pronounceable in Spanish.
The spanish language isn't sacrosant dude, I think almost all (with the exception of latino=latin, amigo=amig, etc) are awkard, but I respect their use if it makes women/queer/nb people more included. God knows they're not right now.
Again, you can be more inclusive without just throwing x everywhere. If you want to change a language, you have to make it pronounceable.
That says nothing, considering that it doesnt take into account the amount of people that use gender neutral language in spanish or english overall. People in latinamerica still dont use gender neutral language either.
As a Colombian. Latinx is fine.
The x has been used in spanish to denote gender neutral language, but also the e. So both Latinx and latine are actually fine. Hell even Latin@, although the @ has lost use in spanish because it is rather binary normative.
Why? Because latino is a masculine gendered word in spanish, just as latina is.
In other words, shut up about stuff you dont understand lol.
lmao, I bet you can't make the whitexican struggle session that happened in México happen here, even I have faith the anglos and euros aren't this ignorant.
In Colombia the queer community is also appropiating the term Marica for themselves, as they did queer, and that is for the actual adjective.
Because marica in other terms can really be used as "dude" here
Had someone say that I had internalized racism for calling myself Hispanic since to them it was code word for "His SP*C". This person was white.
"Folx" is worse because it serves literally no purpose whatsoever, since "folks" is already gender neutral. Just more meaningless liberal newspeak
Folx was invented by queer people of color as not a gender neutral word, but a race neutral one. People of color are often excluded from queer spaces, so it's important to have this sort of language to include an extremely marginalized group of people.
Also it makes cishet dorks mad. That alone is a massively important reason to keep it.
Could you explain how it's race neutral compared to "folks?" I've never heard that and I'm curious.
meaningless liberal newspeak
You're literally doing newspeak by limiting peoples thoughts and abilities to critique society by censoring words, you absolute moron
It's why I suggest to use "Latin" - in Spanish it sounds fine and is naturally intelligible. In English writing, Latinx might work, only if you don't actually try to pronounce it "Latin-ecks"
Is there some nuance of Spanish orthography I'm not getting or did people really just stick an x on the end and expect people not to pronounce it for some reason
It's supposed to be like a variable "x" that does not specify typical endings of words "a" and "o". It's silent and the pronunciation is Latin. I guess english speakers got confused and started pronouncing it. Elsewhere, X itself is pronounced "equis" or "ekis". Irrelevant, but the letter X has a pretty interesting history in the Spanish language and you may be interested in checking it out.
Can confirm. Am PhD grad, I read articles and don't talk to people. Every time someone says a name or word out loud that I've seen dozens of times but never heard pronounced I nearly do a spit take. For example: Henri Gaudier-Brzeska.
Also to show you how pervasive this is the head of my department is fluent in Spanish and I'm pretty sure she says Latin-ecks.
Thanks for the explanation. Before I had no opinion in particular about the term Latinx, but using silent math variables in speech is skin crawlingly awful to me as an English teacher
Over 300 fucking comments lol, who invited the anglos and spanish speaking chuds jesus
this post was actually bait to draw everyones shitty opinions out to cause more drama
im a brain genius
Turns out, the anglos have lots of unfounded opinions that MUST BE HEARD. And the latam chuds need to share their conspiracy theories.
I'll ask my Latin friends/family about this tomorrow lol, I don't see how I'm going to learn anything though this amazing shitfest of a comments section
sure, tho again even in LatAm it's a very contested issue (mostly cus we live in very conservative societies). You're better off asking queer-nb latinx about this, tho seeing all the misinformation and stupidity, I might need to make a little thread detailing this better. I'll let ya know when it's ready.
Well my Latin friends/family are a mix of communists and religious conservatives so I should get a variety of opinions (one of them praised Cuba and Fidel in a video they sent me supportive of LGBT and non binary people's rights, the other person is an ultra conservative Christian). Thanks for the response
No problem, looking forward to hear the side of the communists (I already have enough from the religious and conservatives with my family hahaha)
We still exist though. And as I said, I can understand having reservations about if we should use latinx-latin@-latine, but I refuse to reject inclusive language completely to not inconvenience socially conservative people.
I really hope you start thinking outside of that reactionary garbage and care enough about women, queer and nb people, even if it's incovenient for you. Goodnight.
And the latam chuds need to share their conspiracy theories.
love tu be told by an insane 3rd world engineering student who shares memes about avatar and "skinometer" memes explain to me that women that dont want to live under completely tradcath bullshit got owned by RAE with facts and prescriptivism
All's I know is as a gay, all the Spanish speaking queer folk I know say Latinx. If it's an American thing, it's certainly not something that originated with the white people. They don't even know how to pronounce it.
The word completely disregards the Spanish language. Who tf thought it was a good idea?
Latinos is already gender neutral in a technical sense, but if you really wanna be woke about it at least use something that sounds reasonably Spanish like Latines.
Latinos is not gender neutral. Its the accepted use, just as much as any adjective that refers to a group of people is used in masculine (todos, nosotros, amigos, etc...). And its exactly that usage of masculine adjectives in spanish that is being fought upon. Latino is just another example.
You're pushing the line between what counts as "accepted" and what is just a rule of the language. From a descriptivist standpoint, 'latinos' describes either a group of men, or a group that has at least one man, so gender neutral-ish. I assume when you don't know the gender of anyone in the group, you would also use 'latinos', making it mostly gender neutral.
But yeah, defaulting to masculine is part of why people are trying to make new terms (alongside including enbys). 'Latinx' just isn't good though.
I assume when you don’t know the gender of anyone in the group, you would also use ‘latinos’, making it mostly gender neutral.
Not exactly, this rule basically says, instead of thinking about the gender of the group im referring to, I will assume they are male, at least by majority.
This continues to spark a similar debate about: If a group of only latina women is referred by feminine pronouns, does a single man in a group of a hundred women necessarily indicate they will all be treated as men? If not, where is the line drawn?
I will assume they are male, at least by majority.
This is again a sort of semantic debate about the rules of the language. "Assuming male" is the language's form of gender neutral, by the rules of the language ("rules" being a tricky word in language, but still). It's like a homonym, -os means both male and gender neutral, depending on context. I absolutely understand the desire to change that rule, but that's how the language is currently defined.
If a group of only latina women is referred by feminine pronouns, does a single man in a group of a hundred women necessarily indicate they will all be treated as men?
Again, by the rules of the language, a group with even a single male in it gets the gender neutral usage of -os.
Well ngl those rules are shit and we should change them. Attacking patriarchy means attacking it in our own culture as well.
Of course. Changing a language is perfectly fine and is always happening. 'Latinos' shouldn't be gender neutral, but right now, it is to a vast majority of speakers. To change that you would need a majority of speakers to stop using it that way, then their children will have never used it that way. Like how 'gay' doesn't mean 'happy' anymore.
But asking Spanish speakers to change a word to something unpronounceable in Spanish isn't the way to go about it.
But latinxs isnt unpronounceable? Like the fact that there is an X there doesnt mean you should actually pronounce it.
Thats why in spanish latinxs is usually pronounced latines.
Nah, Latines sounds too much like latrines, I could see that resulting in a third joke for the chuds
ITT white leftists talking about how to refer to minorities
Just a small thing.
Making fun of the X in gender inclusive spanish is akin to making transphobic jokes. Its what the chuds in latinamerica do.
I am Spanish. If you want to use gender-neutral term for Latin people, use Latin. Latinx is ridiculous, "Latine" is redundant because of how words are pronounced. The entire language is gendered, it would already be an epic quest to make it gender-neutral, let alone make it inclusive for non-binary people. You may as well invent a new language at that point.
You may as well invent a new language at that point.
Alright new language, spanish, but gender inclusive
Yes, you understand that it would require changing every noun, pronoun, adjective, and article in the language. This is what the language being neutral, in the sense that English is neutral, would require. Might as well make up a new language if you're going to modify to that extent.
Like, you do know that languages are fake shit. Right?
Esto es lo mismo que decir "no puedes decir googlear" o palabras asi "inventadas" porque no están en la RAE.
Languages are real, they are really used by billions of people. Languages have broadly adhered-to grammatical rules so that mutual intelligibility is possible. Languages are arbitrary, but that doesn't mean that reform is something easy or that will be broadly adopted. For example, the RAE attempts to enforce arbitrary language rules of its own and isn't very successful; that might be an indication of how unfeasible it might be to transform the language into a neutral one. It would be easier for everyone to use an auxiliary language like English, which is already the global lingua franca.
ngl if the solution to "Spanish is not gender inclusive" is "We should actually stop using the language of our countries altogether" you are really missing the mark.
All languages are made up lol, they were all constructed by people, they can be modified by people.
This is what the language being neutral, in the sense that English is neutral, would require.
Good thing we don't want that then.
Are you sure that's what you don't want? I am certain I have seen people propose making the entire language neutral. This thread is about one word specifically, but the logical progression is clear.
Sí. La idea de que vamos a sacarles las terminaciones a todas las palabras y sustituirlas por x o e es una exageración. Si esa es la idea que se percibe, es un error de les que utilizan el lenguaje inclusivo. Tal vez mejor comunicación es necesaria.
Pero te pido que escuches cuando una persona usa lenguaje inclusivo. Las palabras que cambia son solo aquellas que son esplícitamente masculinas y refieren a grupos de personas de más de un género o a una persona individual cuyo género es deconocido (o ni masculino ni femenino).
El género gramatical es otra cosa. Querer quitarlo sería como querer quitar el número de las palabras: posible, pero tan difícil que arruinaría nuestra causa. Nos importa la inclusividad de todos los géneros, solo les humanes tienen género, solo las palabras que refieran a personas humanas deberán ser modificadas.
Si hay un grupo de personas que de verdad son todos varones, el plural masculino queda intacto.
Edit: Sé sincero... ¿es difícil entender lo que escribí? ¿Estoy arruinando el lenguaje? ¿Cómo? Si me entendiste perfectamente.
Humanos is the masculine form. Humanas is the feminine form. I'm speaking about humanos and humanas. I should use humanes.
You probably meant personas. That's because the word doesn't have a masculine form. The word doesn't change gramatical gender when refering to people of different genders.
Because the phrase is exclusively used for liberal activists to signal to each other that their woke and is completely out of touch with people not involved in activism.
It's lowkey colonialist because it's a #woke intervention into a language where it makes no sense. Nobody even knows how to say Latinx in Spanish because it makes no sense, and gendered words in Spanish are just how the language works. It's not like English where "mankind" is explicitly gendered. It's patronizing to actual Latinos, none of whom I know use Latinx and have often complained about it as being a plot by white people to Anglicize Spanish. Most Latinos I know actually prefer Hispanic over Latino/Latinx, and there's substantial data to that effect.
Latin-ekis is how you say it in Spanish, and it's just an attempt to create a gender neutral morphology in a gendered language. No one is "imposing" it on the Spanish language via some colonial mandate, and many of the people who made the term are part of the diaspora and speak Spanish themselves. Many prefer Hispanic, but that has its own historical context and shouldn't be taken as "the will" of Latinos, since it is a group of people that are super divided by class, race, nationality and so on.
Some people say Latine, and some people say Latinx. They're all fledgling attempts to deal with a gendered language and Latinx originated in diaspora activist communities and is mostly used in that context, but I don't really see it as a colonial intervention (in what is already the language of colonisers!)
I don’t really see it as a colonial intervention (in what is already the language of colonisers!)
This. The RAE is the talking point latines use to avoid using inclusive language.
Yeah this is the part that makes it so weird for me as someone whose studied the language. It's a totally anglo invention.
La pronunciación propuesta de latinx en español es latine. La única razón por la que se debe evitar el leguaje inclusivo con esa escritura es accesibilidad. Los lectores de pantallas no reconocen a la x como una vocal.
Inclusiveness of everyone. Including nonbinary people. Rejection of Spanish colonialism, we have the right to change the language we speak regardless of what a foreign Royal institution says.
It allows you to keep the original spelling almost intact. There are rules for e in Spanish.
Example:
Los chicos.
Using the e, you have to change the c to a qu digraph. Like this:
Les chiques.
But the x doesn't have this rules, all you need to know is that you read it like an e. Like this:
Lxs chicxs.
Furthermore, some masculine words use the letter e. You can accept this and more on, or use the x.
Los autores.
Les autores.
Lxs autorxs.
Add to this the fact that, aesthetically, the x "crosses out" the gendered part of the word. It drives the message very clearly.
We're trying our best really. Both options are valid and serve the same purpose.
Oh that makes sense, writing X and pronouncing it E seems a lot better than saying "ekis" all the time. I think the pronunciation matters way more than the symbol.
You are very close to having convinced me, I just have a few questions as I was always convinced that this stuff only happened with the letter X because there was a concurrent trend which involved an increased use of the phrase folx instead of folks within English.
How do LGBT communities within Latin American countries approach this topic. Ive always just gone with the "e" or refer to everything in the plural masculine.
Tell me, is misgendering nonbinary people worth your discomfort in changing one letter? Is including every gender in your discussions ineffective?
People associate it with wokelibs, who cares. People also associate it with degenerate LGBT people who will "groom children" and feminists who want to kill all straight men. Or crazy people who "believe there are more than two genders".
all it took was them less-than-subtly implying that I’m some sort of reactionary or bigot.
If you're talking about me, that really wasn't my intention. If that's how it came accross then I'm sorry. I guess I have to phrase things better.
:/ I can change "your" to "our" if that makes you more comfortable.
Some people keep up the morphology in other words that refer to others, I'm not saying its necessarily a pleasant or easily adopted change, but damn people just love to shoot this down because they associate it with woke-scolds but most don't even speak Spanish and have to get referred to with gender language when they don't want to.
Yeah I think that's where a lot of my hesitation comes from—that it's been adopted so quickly in circles I'm deeply suspicious of, but not within the Hispanic community writ large. If and when that changes, I'll all for the term.
There is no "Hispanic community," people in that "community" disagree about a bunch of shit and don't share the same interests at all and a bunch of them are religious, anti-LGBTQ reactionaries and LGBTQ Latinos are always struggling against these people. People should be able to recongnise this struggle and side with the people who most need the help.
the LGBTQ community also does not exist, considering the scumfuck infighting among the letters
Are there any essays you've seen by actual Latinx folk arguing for the term? I've read a lot of the opposite side but haven't seen much written support for it, and would totally be down to reading. You're right that there's not one monolithic "community," did not mean to imply that. Just meant that this is something that ideally should be worked out amongst those have a stake in it.
wouldn't most communities not identify with a nonbinary term at this point though? IDK I guess I just don't ever see anyone considering that maybe nonbinary people didn't want to use the gendered words?
The continued Americanization of the world at the expense of everything else to conform to a silly word that makes people feel like they're #woke while being incredibly patronizing?
It's literally not patronising! Who is saying they are patronised? Everyone I've met who takes issue with it and talks about the threat to the Spanish language is super reactionary, and then there are some who take issue with how awkward it is and hard to implement but come from a place of wanting to solve the issue of a gendered language we inherited from colonisers.
I've read some stuff to the contrary and my Hispanic friends who don't like and think it's patronizing are definitely not reactionary, but granted this is all anecdotal. If somebody who identifies as Latinx wants to be called Latinx, then yeah that's what I'll call them. Ultimately it's not my place to say one way or another since I'm not part of the community, I just want to push back about those outside of the community so readily adopting the term.
As someone who listened to a shit ton of latin-american punk where they regularly use latinx this is very new to me.
Hit me up with some recommendations. That sounds dope.
Migra Violenta is straight up fast hc/punk, probably the most well known punk band from Argentina, especially their album Holocausto Capitalista is heavy as fuck. Los Dolares , Venezuela, probably one of the most underrated crust bands in the world with the same openly antiimperialist message, no stoppages. Piromanos del Ritmo from Chile, similar to MV, not as straight forward but still cool. Beatriz Carnicero, Odioso Dios. Chulo, powerviolence bands from Uruguay, Argentina and Colombia, OD is my favorite, tons of like 10 second songs even faster than Lack of Interest does it. Besthöven THE Brazilian crust band, they're around for more than 20 years i think, have splits with all the big names, bit redundant for me but i get the appeal.
But this is the tip of the iceberg only, it's a very rewarding task to submerge into latin american punk/hardcore because there are tons of hidden gems there and basically everything is drenched in leftist politics. This blog has a lot of stuff up for starters just put the countries in the searchbox and you can have a feast.
i spent three hours thinking up something that would cause a struggle session
