this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2024
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Latinx is so stupid. Completely removed from the Spanish language. The real answer is Latine because that actually has some precedent in the language even if it wasn't initially intended to be gender neutral.
I have only ever seen latinx used by white people being performatively anti-racist. Never seen it from an actual Latin American person.
Latine is also mostly used by the same group in my experience, though I have met one non-binary person from central America that self-described as such (though they also realized that Spanish is an inherently binary language and that doesn't change overnight, so they just rolled with Latino when others called them that).
Personally, I think we should take a cue from the Pokémon Fandom, who use Lati@s to describe the pair of legendary Pokémon Latios/Latias. Though that has even less chance of catching on and my reasoning for it is even worse than performative anti-racism 😅
Now you have, I guess? Some people use Latinx in English and latine or latin@ in Spanish. Most don’t use either and just say Latino in English and Spanish. This whole “only white people do it” (who are never also Latino for some reason?? You can be both) thing isn’t something that makes sense to me.
Personally I don't think its a question of ethnicity, but rather of language. Latinx works in English but makes no sense in Spanish
It doesn't really work in English either. The only reason it's a thing is because it's a gendered loan word, so we make something up. I'd rather just say "LatAm person" or "Spaniard" depending on region of origin, or "Chilean" or "Peruvian" if I knew their country of origin. Latinx is and always will be stupid, and the Latino (and probably Spaniard) community has outright rejected it since it's not used in any Spanish speaking countries AFAIK.
It was invented by latinx math nerds on 90s chatrooms. It wasn't designed to be spoken, it was designed to be a math joke.
I mean, why not? There are Spanish words with an x in them that make basically the same sound as in English: extranjero, excelente—and while I’ll give you that those are at the middle of a word rather than the end, there’s even ex (as in ex boyfriend) that can just be used alone.
If you want to say it needs a vowel to make sense in Spanish, sure, throw an e in there for clarity.