Do Latin People Use “Latinx,” or Is It the Media Forcing It? The Genesis of a Controversial Term

Have you ever wondered where the term “Latinx” originated and why it has become so popular recently? If you answered yes, this post will be able to solve your questions once and for all, and you can also share this knowledge with others who may be interested.

The term “latinx” has been recently overused in the United States to promote and debate National Hispanic Heritage Month 2022; nevertheless, the term’s use may not be organic (or even used in the way it was initially meant to)

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This word has been coined recently and thus hasn’t gained widespread acceptability among the Latino or Hispanic population in the United States; nonetheless, a group that uses it frequently is composed of young individuals with more progressive views. The use of this term certainly represents a gap between generations, as older generations within the Hispanic community are unlikely to use it (of course, there are always exceptions).

Let’s keep in mind that the Latino or Hispanic community in the United States represents only 18.7% of the total population of this country, quite a significant amount. One might be able to state that the term “Latinx” was created to meet the desire to unite this Latino and Hispanic community; however, this is only a tiny portion of the causes, the most important of which are listed below. Keep reading our analysis below to find out if Latin people actually use “latinx”.

What does “latinx” mean and how to pronounce it

Let us begin with a crucial observation: Spanish is a language with nouns that incorporate gender, often masculine and feminine. Furthermore, Spanish has a grammatical masculine that serves an inclusive function when a group comprises both the feminine and masculine.

However, times change and language adapts to accommodate people’s needs. To help persons who do not identify with the feminine or masculine gender feel rightfully included, the letter “x” was used instead of the suffixes that designate a gender. This suffix “-x” serves to erase all traces of grammatical gender in Spanish – expressed via “-o” (masculine) and “-a” (feminine) – and thus, rejects the gender binary. Latin@ and Latine are two words that are used for similar reasons. The “-x” has also been added to the term Chicano, resulting in a new term, “Chicanx”.

This word is pronounced as lat-in-ex, latinex, as it is read. Or in English you could say lah-tee-nex, it would be pronounced the same way as in Spanish.

Origin and meaning of “latinx” in the United States

In the early 2000s, certain activist groups in the United States were fighting for what was called back then “gender neutrality,” which referred to genders that were not formally determined in a grammatical and phonetic way. In this way, the term “latinx” arose in blogs and various message boards. The tendency escalated following the 2016 shooting at Pulse, an Orlando nightclub, in which 49 mostly LGBT Latin individuals were killed.

These types of concerns have sparked a lot of debate, with many claiming, with the same zeal as the neutral campaigners, that language doesn’t discriminate and shouldn’t be modified in any way. However, this is a pretty long, complex, and troublesome topic that we will avoid for the time being.

Nonetheless, this phrase has been employed in newspapers such as the New York Times and National Public Radio in the United States, and “Latinxs Studies” is also a course that is offered at Harvard University. As previously mentioned, this term was widely used in the media this month to promote National Hispanic Heritage Month. To mark this occasion, formal organizations issued statements with the word “Latinx” in the headlines, and playlists labeled, for example, “Latinx Heritage Month”, including Latin tunes were created. Today, this term is classified within “gender-inclusive language” and is included in English dictionaries such as the Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries, while it is not yet included in the Royal Spanish Academy’s dictionaries (RAE).

So, is the word “latinx” being imposed on Hispanic/Latin populations by the media?

We have witnessed firsthand how the media has begun to adopt this phrase.

However, it is unclear if this is for marketing purposes and to hop on the gender inclusion bandwagon, or because they truly believe that such language reforms are necessary.

While, as previously mentioned, many Latinos and young Hispanics in the United States are among those who use this word, there are many more who disagree and are opposed to this sort of shift. This is related to linguistic, social, religious, and a variety of other factors.

Latinx and Latino conversation trending again, time to bring this out again pic.twitter.com/2sWecPisUT
— Pun Otaku (Polls Arc) (@TheKnownOtaku) June 25, 2021

It is absolutely true that people many times conform to what is mentioned in mass media; nonetheless, it would be inaccurate to blame the media for this statement being used or not by Hispanic/Latino groups. Nowadays, everyone has access to a wealth of information and may make their own decisions on which language/terms to use or identify with.

Everyone is free to share their opinions about what they think and identify with on social media platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and others. There will be many naysayers, but there will also be many more who feel the same way or find a place where they can be themselves and feel comfortable.

Finally, it may be claimed that the media feels the term “latinx” simply helps to combine Latinos and Hispanics into a single notion while neglecting the more complicated and problematic underlying issue of gender inclusion. On the contrary, by making it their own, they may appeal to all of these reasons and encourage language shift in conjunction with gender inclusion and a coherent use.

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