A good friend of mine is a Spanish translator for a social services agency. She was telling me that the "latinx" thing is a real problem, because for people -- particularly older people -- who are not strong on their reading in the first place, they hit "LatinX" and genuinely have zero idea what that's supposed to mean.
So then time, energy, and goodwill gets wasted by having to explain to people what they "should" be calling themselves. The people she's talking to thinks the whole thing is just stupid, and is a thing that only white people care about.
But she also mentions that the younger generation of LatinX people do care, and often prefer the term. It's all a big mess and makes compassionate communication more difficult.
There's an extra layer of post-colonialism in this situation, but it's otherwise almost identical to the discussion happening in English about gendered pronouns. I think the following can both be true:
1. It's bad to tell people that they're using their native language badly if you're not a native speaker (especially in a scenario where there's a social power dynamic at play, like Spanish speakers trying to navigate discrimination in the US). People making things harder for immigrants without compassion for their challenges are probably making a mistake.
2. It's bad to say "this whole thing is just stupid" about a radical shift in language that's being deliberately embraced by younger people to break down discriminatory gender traditions, just because it's new and you're mildly confused about it. People making things harder for gender-nonconforming people are probably making a mistake.
Replace “younger people” with “a few younger people from a particular socioeconomic class” to be more accurate.
The eternal outraged youth will always find a few hobby horses to ride. Sometimes they lead to good things. This is a particularly smelly one, unfortunately.
It’s not bad to say “this whole thing is just stupid”. It’s just incomplete to say…it’s also musically ugly (language is a song of sorts) and culturally insulting. The intent is understandable, the linguistic implementation ridiculous. How about actual younger people developing another, more beautiful, culturally acceptable, word to achieve the same objective? Why continue to ride this malodorous hobby horse their elders forced between their legs? (I think that image is acceptably gender-nonconforming, and oddly appropriate.)
Anyway, according to la Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española
the body responsible for the preservation of the Spanish language across the Spanish-speaking world, it isn’t a Spanish word (not acknowledged in the official dictionary)
BTW your phrase “mildly confused” is demeaning and insulting to readers who would genuinely struggle with incorporating this in their normal Spanish speech after decades of surviving without it. Bit ironic for someone concerned with “sensitivity” to write.
> The eternal outraged youth will always find a few hobby horses to ride. Sometimes they lead to good things. This is a particularly smelly one, unfortunately.
Nonbinary people face real discrimination, including but not limited to the dismissal of that fight as pointless outrage.
> it’s also musically ugly (language is a song of sorts)
This is ridiculous. Ugly-sounding words will always exist.
> and culturally insulting ... How about actual younger people developing another, more beautiful, culturally acceptable, word to achieve the same objective
What does any of this even mean? Real Spanish-speaking nonbinary young people did come up with a working solution. If you think it's too ugly sounding, fine, you get to have an opinion. If you think it shouldn't exist because it's too ugly sounding to you, honestly, fuck off. That's not a valid complaint.
I am aware of La Asociación. I understand that they literally make the rules. I need you to understand that they do not actually make the rules. Language is how people communicate. New words happen.
So on the one hand:
1. You don't like the sound of the word
2. An intrinsically conservative body hasn't yet recognized the word
On the other hand:
1. Nonbinary would simply like a word to refer to themselves because one doesn't exist.
But, I will concede that it was pretty rude of me to write "mildly confused". I shouldn't have been so uncharitable.
Nonbinary claim to exist, but no human to date has been able to produce viable sperm and eggs simultaneously.
There is a gender spectrum, agreed, but that doesn't mean we can't classify people into a singular description, and it surely doesn't mean we need to change entire languages to appease made up oppression.
Gay? Makes sense and no issues. No demand for language changes.
Nonbinary,trans? Totally made up because they want to 1. Signal their oppression status and therefore be part of the proletariat, or 2. A true mental issue is at foot. Neither are justifications for removing gendered language, and plastic surgery doesn't remove the biological differences between men and women.
The way I see it, this is going to have to go up to the Supreme Court, where it will be determined that either there is no difference between men and women for legal purposes, and therefore any separation is discrimination (goodbye gendered bathrooms, women's sports, women in engineering clubs, etc.), or we will in fact determine there are biological differences which justify separation in specific circumstances (sports, locker rooms), and no amount of plastic surgery will allow one to change their classification. Of course, that is only insofar as anyone else in those environments could tell (aka having your penis out in a women's locker room would be the tell).
The most amusing part about this is that literally the entire Spanish language is gendered, so we should probably change all words to 'x' replacements as well.
No more "los gatos"!
Lxs gatxs has so much more of a latin ring to it. (/s)
Spanish is being obliterated by lXs que lo hablan peor.
I think you have finally hit upon the solution to the pronoun problem.
In almost no case till I care about the express sexuality of the person for whom I am using a pronoun and I resent having to be forced to care about their self-centered nature, being self-centered myself.
However, instead of saying "he is wearing a weird hat", I can say "that cat is wearing a weird hat"
> But she also mentions that the younger generation of LatinX people do care, and often prefer the term. It's all a big mess and makes compassionate communication more difficult.
As someone who's interacted extensively with the Hispanic community in the United States, I just want to point out that the younger generation generally are not completely fluent in Spanish. They often can understand their parents perfectly well but have trouble actually speaking the language.
With that in mind, I'm still suspicious that preferring LatinX correlates primarily with fluency in Spanish rather than age.
This word is also an issue for screen readers that some visually impaired people rely on. The use of "x" in the end of words to signal gender neutering is a very debated topic in Portuguese-speaking forums and nowadays, most people tend to agree that it's not optimal because it's not universally intelligible.
Latin person, person from a Latin-heritage background, and such, although more verbose, are preferred.
so its "LA-TEEN-EK-EES" if we are respecting the Spanish language.
but in reality such silly butchering of a language isnt respecting the Spanish language in the first place. its merely more communism attempts to disrupt tradition & reform societies towards some immature high school wanna-be communist ends by people who've never lived in communist society.
So then time, energy, and goodwill gets wasted by having to explain to people what they "should" be calling themselves. The people she's talking to thinks the whole thing is just stupid, and is a thing that only white people care about.
But she also mentions that the younger generation of LatinX people do care, and often prefer the term. It's all a big mess and makes compassionate communication more difficult.