ShardikprimePorque no los Dos?
But don’t you dare mention the e or @ or heaven forbid the dreaded x, because accomodating identities not traditionally considered in a language’s common form is “white people shit”
Every single American born person of hispanic heritage, every first gen Spanish speaking immigrant I have ever known or met, as a friend, momentary acquaintance, or as a social worker helping to aid the homeless…
…every one that I have met in the real world either thinks latinx is laughably stupid (as in they literally laugh when the topic is brought up), or they are visibly confused.
And of friends and acquaintances, I know they ranged all over the political spectrum.
I wish no ill will on whoever came up with the term, but it just is not sensible to anyone who is not terminally online.
Hablo un pocquito español, so… as far as I can tell, there is at least existing precedent for the e ending, but I’ll leave it up to the actual members of the language group and its culture to come up with a term (hell, there may be many different local or regional ways to accomplish it, as Spanish varies considerably by region and locale).
Actual members of the language group and culture did come up with a term, they came up with the x, and the anti-queer-machismo undercurrent in Latine society drove the lot to hysterics about the end of the spanish language and the gringoification of Latine culture.
Every time I see someone try to excuse this shit they’ll spin some variant of “let them decide what term to use”, and I’m like, why isn’t the same right afforded to the queer folks who came up with those terms?
What about the greater Latine culture gives them a superior right to the Latine queer community to decide what letter to use? Why is not listening to the language community in question suddenly ok when it means overriding what the Latin Queer community outright told y’all they wanted in favor of appeasing los machismos who are all suddenly heads of the spanish academy and grammar experts as soon as it’s convenient to be so to shout down some gay math nerds who wanted to be clever and punny in their chatspeak representation?
The Anglosphere didn’t have the right to tell our queer community what they were gonna be called, why should we respect the hispanosphere trying to say they have that right?
Look, if someone wants to identify as latinx, I’m not going to stop them.
If the term was, as you say, invented by gay latinx math nerds in chat rooms then sure, it works for them on internet chatrooms or in the real.
There does seem to be significant contention as to where and how the term arose, as well as its usage, and that’s from LGTBQ writers, activists and academics.
Some are for it, some are against it, and its not just because of machismo. I’m seeing a whole bunch of articles from a quick search of people writing arguments against latinx from differing perspectives such as X is a product of settler colonialism, it erases blackness, it erases femicides, etc etc, and again this is coming from LGBTQ magazines.
My point was that in practical usage, specifically when serving in a non profit assisting the homeless, the term is a point of confusion, and more generally, it is basically an online term that works when written, but not when spoken.
Sure, if you grew up knowing English you can probably pronounce it, but a Spanish only speaker usually looks at the word and thinks it is a misspelling, as generally latinx does not result in an easily pronounceable sound following Spanish pronunciation rules.
The only similar analogy I can think of in English is the rainbow of pronouns invented by Tumblr.
I have no problem calling a NB person ‘they/them’.
But when it gets to things like xer/xem or bun/buns or fae/faer or some of the other, wackier pronouns I’ve seen… its often words that are very awkward to say aloud, and they just seem ridiculous.
That’s a lot of text trying to justify not just calling people what they tell you they want to be called.
Also, “settler colonialism” just taking us back to that whole “recognizing queer rights is just white people shit” angle, you just fucking troyed yourself. “In your soul.” “That’s racist.” “In your body?” “That’s gay?” “That’s homophobic.” “That’s Black.” “That’s Racist!”
Talking about it erasing blackness also flying dangerously close to that boundary, and “femicide” looks suspiciously like all the TERF Island rumblings about “erasing womanhood”.
If someone goes out of their way to specifically tell you how they want to be referred to, just fucking do that instead of being a little crying bitch baby about it. It’s some letters, you can ask them for a pronunciation if it’s really that hard to sight read.
Every second you spend on trying to justify intentionally putting down how someone wants to be referred to is infinitely more effort than was ever necessary for anything, and continuing to try and justify this childish tantrum throwing is exponentially more effort than that.
Just respect how people want you to refer to them. Just do that. It’s not nearly as hard as you’re trying to excuse it as. Just be a decent person already.
That’s a lot of text trying to justify not just calling people what they tell you they want to be called.
You evidently cannot read, as I explicitly said, in the first line, that I have no problem calling someone latinx if they tell me that is what they want to be called.
Anyway, I am not actually promulgating the arguments you are critiquing.
I am saying that the term latinx is contentious, amongst hispanic LGBTQ people, amongst academics, as well as amongst the reactionaries you seem to want to label me as.
As the term is contentious, and I am not a hispanic LGBTQ person, I am not going to tell people they cannot label themselves as latinx, nor am I going to insist use that term instead of others.
I am bewildered as to how you have decided that I am a crying little baby bitch who is throwing a childish temper tantrum.
I am not a hispanic LGBTQ person, my only relevant experience or credential or whatever is interacting in my relatively basic level of Spanish with many people, most for the purpose of attempting to help them get housing or some other kind of assistance.
I used to design the online and offline forms used for intake and other various functions, and I am basing what I’ve said on my experience and the many experiences of the employees using said forms, as well as myself when I did outreach.
My personal opinion is twofold:
Latinx basically either doesn’t work as a word or is confusing following Spanish’s own rules.
I have interacted with (directly and by proxy via constantly receiving feedback from the intake crew and other employees at the nonprofit) hundreds of Spanish only speakers, and they are generally confused by the word latinx, likely due to part 1.
Again, since I apparently have to make this clear, if someone tells me they identify as latinx, I have no problem with this.
You’re the one who compared it to neo-pronouns as if expecting people to respect either if presented with them in a social context is ridiculous.
Its the closest analogy I can come up with, though it is not linguistically perfect.
The closeness of the analogy is that neo pronouns and latinx are primarily used by terminally online people, rarely used in most people’s day to day real world experience, that the terms are viewed by many as linguistically awkward, confusing and/or cringey.
I don’t know what to tell you if you think that talking to an average Spanish only speaker and using the term latinx, or an average English speaker using neo-pronouns, that the average person is in the real world is not going to find this confusing and strange.
They are thus both examples of terms that seem normal/acceptable/understandable only to a person who is terminally online.