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Are latin@/latinx actually favored by the communities they intend to protect? (hexbear.net)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Not to humblebrag but I’m not online enough to know the details of the likely struggle sessions that have already occurred relating to this (Hexbear or elsewhere)

I’m reading Racial Formation in the United States, and it makes frequent use of latin@. But to me it just seems really awkward/forced.

Just use latine? Or, if one insists on using a combo letter, maybe at least something like the Swedish å? Or instead of trying to change the language, just divorce any correlation between human gender and word gender by selecting either latino or latina to refer to all people.

I only have a basic American level ability to speak Spanish so if there are Spanish speakers here with better insight, lemme hear the roasts

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I can only speak for myself, but I don't personally use Latinx to refer to myself or others by default; frankly, I've always used Hispanic, which is already gender neutral, so I never saw a compelling reason to switch the term I use in English, and Latinx just feels wrong and even alienating to me. It does see a lot of usage in activist communities, but to me it seems a fool's errand to try to get a term adopted that so clearly does not fit into Spanish phonotactics. Of course, I'll use it if someone prefers it, but I cannot imagine it ever gaining widespread adoption among those whose primary language is Spanish--pretty much the polar opposite of singular "they".

I'm also a fan of latine which fits neatly into the language (not just the term itself, but the strategy for making other gendered words neutral) and does seem to have some purchase among Spanish speakers. It's the term I'd use if I wanted to be explicitly inclusive, which I realize is something "Hispanic" fails to convey (not just with regards to gender but also indigenous communities as well as Portuguese speakers).

This is all the perspective of someone who's probably considered a gringo by most of my family (born and raised in the US, decent but clearly non-native grasp of Spanish), so maybe not the insight you'd hoped for, but it's a perspective nonetheless.