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''Latinx'' is an English
neologism In linguistics, a neologism (; also known as a coinage) is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered ...
used to refer to people with
Latin American Latin Americans (; ) are the citizenship, citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their Latin American diaspora, diasporas are Metroethnicity, ...
cultural or ethnic identity in the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
. The term aims to be a gender-neutral alternative to ''Latino'' and ''Latina'' by replacing the masculine and feminine ending with the suffix. The plural for ''Latinx'' is ''Latinxs'' or ''Latinxes.'' The term was first seen online around 2004; it has since been used in
social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...
by activists, students, and academics who seek to advocate for
non-binary Non-binary or genderqueer Gender identity, gender identities are those that are outside the male/female gender binary. Non-binary identities often fall under the transgender umbrella since non-binary people typically identify with a gende ...
and
genderqueer Non-binary or genderqueer gender identities are those that are outside the male/female gender binary. Non-binary identities often fall under the transgender umbrella since non-binary people typically identify with a gender that is differ ...
individuals. Related gender-neutral neologisms include '' Xicanx'' or ''Chicanx'' as a derivative of ''
Chicano Chicano (masculine form) or Chicana (feminine form) is an ethnic identity for Mexican Americans that emerged from the Chicano Movement. In the 1960s, ''Chicano'' was widely reclaimed among Hispanics in the building of a movement toward politic ...
/ Chicana''. ''Latinx'' does not adhere to conventional grammatical gender rules in Spanish, is difficult to pronounce for Spanish speakers, and is criticized as showing disrespect towards the
Spanish language Spanish () or Castilian () is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Today, it is a world language, gl ...
as a whole. In Latin America, terms such as '' Latine'' ''and Latin@'' have been used to indicate gender-neutrality; however, the
Royal Spanish Academy The Royal Spanish Academy (, ; ) is Spain's official royal institution with a mission to ensure the stability of the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, Spain, and is affiliated with national language academies in 22 other Hispanophon ...
style guide does not recognize gender-neutral language for the Spanish language as grammatically correct. In English, ''Latin'' without a suffix has been proposed as an alternative to ''Latinx''. Reception of the term among
Hispanic and Latino Americans Hispanic and Latino Americans are Americans who have a Spaniards, Spanish or Latin Americans, Latin American background, culture, or family origin. This demographic group includes all Americans who identify as Hispanic or Latino (demonym), ...
has been overwhelmingly negative, and surveys have found that the vast majority prefer other terms such as ''Hispanic'' and ''Latina/Latino'' to describe themselves with only 2–3% using ''Latinx''. A 2023
Pew Research Center The Pew Research Center (also simply known as Pew) is a nonpartisan American think tank based in Washington, D.C. It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the world. It ...
survey found that roughly half of U.S. Hispanics were not aware of the term ''Latinx''; of those aware of it, 75% said it should not be used, including 36% who found increased usage to be a bad thing.


Usage and pronunciation

''Latinx'' as a
group identity Collective identity or group identity is a shared sense of belonging to a group. This concept appears within a few social science fields. National identity is a simple example, though myriad groups exist which share a sense of identity. Like ma ...
term denotes individuals in the United States who have Latin American roots. Other terms for this specific social category include ''
Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...
'', '' Latino'', ''Latina'', '' Latine'', and ''Latin@'' (combining the letters "a" and "o" into the character @). Yet another term is simply "Latin", a gender-neutral alternative, and can be stated in the plural as "Latin peoples". ''Latinx'' is used as an alternative to the
gender binary The gender binary (also known as gender binarism) is the classification of gender into two distinct forms of masculine and feminine, whether by social system, Culture, cultural belief, or both simultaneously. Most cultures use a gender binary, ...
inherent to formulations such as ''Latina/o'' and ''Latin@'', and is used by and for anyone of Latin-American descent who does not identify as either male or female, or more broadly as a gender-neutral term for such. Pronunciations of ''Latinx'' documented in dictionaries include . Other variants respelled ''ad hoc'' as "Latins", "La-tinks", or "Latin-
equis The EFMD Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) is a business school accreditation managed by Brussels based EFMD. It provides accreditation for higher education institutions of management and business administration and is run by the European Fou ...
" have been reported. Editors at
Merriam-Webster Merriam-Webster, Incorporated is an list of companies of the United States by state, American company that publishes reference work, reference books and is mostly known for Webster's Dictionary, its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary pub ...
write that "more than likely, there was little consideration for how 'Latinx''was supposed to be pronounced when it was created."


Origins and public usage

The first records of the term ''Latinx'' appear in the 21st century, but there is no certainty as to its first occurrence. According to
Google Trends Google Trends is a website by Google that analyzes the popularity of top search queries in Google Search across various regions and languages. The website uses graphs to compare the search volume of different queries over a certain period of ti ...
, it was first seen online in 2004, and first appeared in academic literature around 2013 "in a Puerto Rican psychological periodical to challenge the gender binaries encoded in the Spanish language." Contrarily, it has been claimed that usage of the term "started in online chat rooms and
listserv The term Listserv (styled by the registered trademark licensee, L-Soft International, Inc., as LISTSERV) has been used to refer to electronic mailing list software applications in general, but is more properly applied to a few early instances of ...
s in the 1990s" and that its first appearance in academic literature was in the Fall 2004 volume of the journal ''Feministas Unidas''. In the rest of the United States, it was first used in activist and LGBT circles as a way to expand on earlier attempts at gender-inclusive forms of the grammatically masculine Latino, such as ''Latino/a'' and ''Latin@.'' A similar use of 'x' in the term '' Mx.'' may have been an influence or model for the development of ''Latinx''. Use of ''x'' to expand language can be traced to the word ''Chicano'', which had an ''x'' added to the front of the word, making it ''Xicano''. Scholars have identified this shift as part of the movement to empower people of Mexican origin in the U.S. and also as a means of emphasizing that the origins of the letter ''X'' and term ''Chicano'' are linked to the Indigenous
Nahuatl language Nahuatl ( ; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...
. The ''x'' has also been added to the end of the term ''Chicano'', making it ''Chicanx''. An example of this occurred at
Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
where students changed their student group name from "Chicano Caucus" to "Chicanx Caucus" in December 2014. The following year, Columbia University changed the name of Latino Heritage Month to Latinx Hispanic Heritage Month. Salinas and Lozano (2017) state that the term is influenced by Mexican indigenous communities that have a
third gender Third gender or third sex is an identity recognizing individuals categorized, either by themselves or by society, as neither a man nor a woman. Many gender systems around the world include three or more genders, deriving the concept either from ...
role, such as Juchitán de Zaragoza,
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(see also: ). Between 2004 and 2014, ''Latinx'' did not attain broad usage or attention. Awareness of the term grew in the month following the Pulse nightclub shooting of June 2016; Google Trends shows that searches for this term rose greatly in this period. The term was added to the
Merriam-Webster Merriam-Webster, Incorporated is an list of companies of the United States by state, American company that publishes reference work, reference books and is mostly known for Webster's Dictionary, its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary pub ...
English dictionary in 2018, as it continued to grow in popularity in the United States, and to the ''
Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...
'' in 2019. Between 2019 and 2024, awareness for the term doubled among those who self-identified as U.S. Latinos or Hispanics.


Among US Hispanics/Latinos

Despite the increase in awareness, use of the term to describe oneself has not greatly increased over time. , use of the term ''Latinx'' was limited nearly exclusively to the United States.. "Latinx is a term used exclusively within the United States, or nearly so, such that people from Latin America would not ordinarily think of themselves as Latinxs, unless or until they reside in the United States." Manuel Vargas writes that people from Latin America ordinarily would not think of themselves using the term unless they reside in the United States. A 2019 poll (with a 5% margin of error) found that 2% of US residents of Latin American descent in the US use ''Latinx'', including 3% of 18–34-year-olds; the rest preferred other terms. "No respondents over ge50 selected the term", while overall "3% of women and 1% of men selected the term as their preferred ethnic identifier". A 2020
Pew Research Center The Pew Research Center (also simply known as Pew) is a nonpartisan American think tank based in Washington, D.C. It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the world. It ...
survey found that only 23% of US adults who self-identified as Hispanic or Latino had heard of the term ''Latinx''. Of those, 65% said that the term ''Latinx'' should not be used to describe them, with most preferring terms such as ''Hispanic'' or ''Latino''. While the remaining 33% of US Hispanic adults who have heard the term ''Latinx'' said it could be used to describe the community, only 10% of that subgroup preferred it to the terms ''Hispanic'' or ''Latino''. The preferred term both among Hispanics who have heard the term and among those who have not was ''Hispanic'', garnering 50% and 64% respectively. ''Latino'' was second in preference with 31% and 29% respectively. Only 3% self identified as ''Latinx'' in that survey. A 2020 study based on interviews with 34 Latinx/a/o students from the US found that they "perceive higher education as a privileged space where they use the term ''Latinx''. Once they return to their communities, they do not use the term". A 2021 Gallup poll asked Hispanic Americans about their preference among the terms "Hispanic," "Latino" and "Latinx". 57% said it did not matter, and 4% chose ''Latinx''. In a follow-up question where they were asked which term they lean toward, 5% chose ''Latinx''. A 2021 poll by Democratic Hispanic outreach firm Bendixen & Amandi International found that only 2 percent of those polled refer to themselves as Latinx, while 68 percent call themselves "Hispanic" and 21 percent favored "Latino" or "Latina" to describe their ethnic background. In addition, 40 percent of those polled said Latinx bothers or offends them to some degree and 30 percent said they would be less likely to support a politician or organization that uses the term. A 2024
Pew Research Center The Pew Research Center (also simply known as Pew) is a nonpartisan American think tank based in Washington, D.C. It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the world. It ...
survey found that awareness among U.S. Latinos and Hispanics increased from 23% to 47%, but those who self-identified as ''Latinx'' only increased from 3% to 4%, roughly equal to 1.9 million people. Demographic groups including age, sexual orientation, and Afro-Latino identity show the largest distinction between users and non-users. Nonetheless, 75% of U.S. Hispanic adults in the survey opposed the use of ''Latinx'' to describe their respective population, with 52% preferring the term ''Hispanic'' and 29% preferring the term ''Latino/Latina''.


In literature and academia

''Latinx'' has become commonly used by activists in American higher education and the popular media who seek to advocate for individuals on the borderlines of gender identity. Herlihy-Mera calls ''Latinx'' "a recognition of the exclusionary nature of our institutions, of the deficiencies in existent linguistic structures, and of language as an agent of social change", saying, "The gesture toward linguistic
intersectionality Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how groups' and individuals' social and political identities result in unique combinations of discrimination and privilege. Examples of these intersecting and overlapping factor ...
stems from a suffix endowed with a literal intersection—''x''." Some commentators, such as Ed Morales, a lecturer at
Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
and author of the 2018 book ''Latinx: The New Force in American Politics and Culture'', associate the term with the ideas of
Gloria Anzaldúa Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa (September 26, 1942 – May 15, 2004) was an American scholar of Chicana feminism, cultural theory, and queer theory. She loosely based her best-known book, '' Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza'' (1987), on h ...
, a Chicana feminist. Morales writes that "refusal to conform to male/female gender binaries" parallels "the refusal to conform to a racial binary". The term appears in the titles of academic books in the context of LGBT studies, rhetoric and
composition studies Composition studies (also referred to as composition and rhetoric, rhetoric and composition, writing studies, or simply composition) is the professional field of writing, research, and instruction, focusing especially on writing at the college leve ...
, and
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. Scharrón-del Río and Aja (2015) have traced the use of ''Latinx'' by authors Beatriz Llenín Figueroa, Jaime Géliga Quiñones, Yuderkys Espinosa Miñoso, and Adriana Gallegos Dextre. The term has also been discussed in scholarly research by cultural theorist Ilan Stavans on
Spanglish Spanglish (a blend of the words "Spanish" and "English") is any language variety (such as a contact dialect, hybrid language, pidgin, or creole language) that results from conversationally combining Spanish and English. The term is mostly u ...
and by Frederick Luis Aldama and Christopher Gonzalez on Latinx super heroes in mainstream comics and Latinx graphic novels such as United States of Banana. The term and concept of Latinx is also explored by Antonio Pastrana Jr., Juan Battle and Angelique Harris on LBGTQ+ issues. Valdes also uses the term in research on black perspectives on Latinx. Despite the extensive use of the term across academic texts, Salinas and Lozano (2019) write that authors often lack definitions for the term within their texts. Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera writes that in Puerto Rico, the "shift toward x in reference to people has already occurred" in limited academic settings and "for many faculty n the humanities department at the University of Puerto Rico">University_of_Puerto_Rico.html" ;"title="n the humanities department at the University of Puerto Rico">n the humanities department at the University of Puerto Rico''hermanx'' and ''niñx'' and their equivalents have been the standard ... for years. It is clear that the inclusive approach to nouns and adjectives is becoming more common, and while it may at some point become the prevailing tendency, presently there is no prescriptive control toward either syntax". Also available a
Academia.edu
Several student-run organizations at academic institutions have used the word in their title. At Princeton University the Latinx Perspective Organization was founded in 2016 to "unify Princeton's diverse Latinx community" and several student-run organizations at other institutions have used the word in their title. The
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
, has established the Latinx Research Center, "a faculty-led research hub...that is home to cutting-edge research about the diverse Latinx community of the U.S." Conversely, a 2020 analysis found "that
community college A community college is a type of undergraduate higher education institution, generally leading to an associate degree, certificate, or diploma. The term can have different meanings in different countries: many community colleges have an open enr ...
professional organizations have by and large not adopted the term ''Latinx'', even by organizations with a Latinx/a/o centered mission", although some academic journals and dissertations about community colleges were using it.


In politics

Some U.S. Republicans argue that the word is a product of liberal " wokeism". In January 2023, Republican
Governor of Arkansas The governor of Arkansas is the head of government of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The Governor (United States), governor is the head of the Executive (government), executive branch of the Politics and government of Arkansas, Arkansas government a ...
Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued the ''Executive Order to Respect the Latino Community by Eliminating Culturally Insensitive words from Official Use in Government'', banning the use of ''Latinx'' in official Arkansas government communications. Some U.S. Democrats argue that the term disfigures the Spanish language and is an act of cultural appropriation. In February 2023, a group of Hispanic
Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...
lawmakers, including five Democrats, proposed a similar ban on formal state documents, calling the term offensive to Spanish speakers. State Representative Geraldo Reyes Jr., who introduced the measure, called the term "offensive and unnecessary". Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego, who represented a majority-Hispanic congressional district in
Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...
before 2025, advises Democrats not to use the term. Members of the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) is an organization of 38 Democratic members of the United States Congress of Hispanic and Latino descent. The Caucus focuses on issues affecting Hispanics and Latinos in the United States. The CHC was fo ...
are hesitant to use the term until after usage continues to evolve to make it more common, according to California representative Raul Ruiz. Democrats have utilized ''Latinx'' far more often, particularly on social media where 47% of Democrats of the 116th Congress used the term across
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and
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posts compared to just 1% of Republican lawmakers. On June 26, 2019, during the first 2020 Democratic Party presidential debate, the word was used by the presidential candidate
Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Ann Warren (née Herring; born June 22, 1949) is an American politician and former law professor who is the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States senator from the state of Massachusetts, serving since 2013. A mem ...
, who is not Hispanic or Latina, which ''
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'' called "one of the highest profile uses of the term since its conception".
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of '' Vox'', discussing
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's gains among Hispanic voters in the
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, stated that for Democrats, while other factors played a larger role, the term "is, if nothing else, a symptom of the problem, which is a tendency to privilege academic concepts and linguistic innovations in addressing social justice concerns." He says that " e message of the term... is that the entire grammatical system of the Spanish language is problematic, which in any other context progressives would recognize as an alienating and insensitive message."


Reception

''Latinx'' has been the subject of controversy. " Linguistic imperialism" has been used as a basis of both criticism and support and the term has been rejected by many members of the Hispanic and Latino or Latin communities. In 2018, the
Royal Spanish Academy The Royal Spanish Academy (, ; ) is Spain's official royal institution with a mission to ensure the stability of the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, Spain, and is affiliated with national language academies in 22 other Hispanophon ...
rejected the use of ''-x'' and ''-e'' as gender-neutral alternatives to the collective masculine ''-o'' ending, in a style manual published together with the
Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española The Association of Academies of the Spanish Language (; ASALE) is an entity whose end is to work for the unity, integrity, and growth of the Spanish language. It was created in Mexico in 1951 and represents the union of all the separate academies ...
(ASALE). Regarding this decision, Darío Villanueva, RAE's director said, "The problem is we're confusing
grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...
with machismo." According to ''HuffPost'', some refuse to use the term on the grounds that ''Latinx'' is difficult to pronounce in the Spanish language. Linguists Janet M. Fuller and Jennifer Leeman state that some people reject the use of ''Latinx'' to refer to people regardless of gender because they see it as a one-size-fits-all term that erases diversity, preferring to switch between ''-o/-a/-x'' when referring to specific individuals. Those who oppose the term in its entirety have argued that the ''-x'' is artificial, unpronounceable, an imposition of English norms on Spanish, or overly
fad A fad, trend, or craze is any form of collective behavior that develops within a culture, a generation, or social group in which a group of people enthusiastically follow an impulse for a short time period. Fads are objects or behaviors tha ...
dish. Many non-binary Latinos whose first language is not English have also criticized the term on the basis that it caters more to Latin Americans who are fluent in English and can pronounce the ''-x'' ending easily while ignoring gender neutral alternatives already employed by Latin American activists, such as ''-e'' ( Latine). Linguist
John McWhorter John Hamilton McWhorter V (; born October 6, 1965) is an American linguist. He is an associate professor of linguistics at Columbia University, where he also teaches American studies and music history. He has authored a number of books on race ...
argues that, in contrast to other neologisms such as ''
African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
'', ''Latinx'' has not become mainstream because the problem of implied gender it aims to solve is more a concern of the
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than the "proverbial person on the street". According to ''
HuffPost ''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers p ...
'', "Many opponents of the term have suggested that using an un-gendered noun like Latinx is disrespectful to the Spanish language and some have even called the term 'a blatant form of linguistic imperialism. Defending usage of the term against critics arguing linguistic imperialism, Brooklyn College professors María R. Scharrón-del Río and Alan A. Aja argue that the Spanish language itself is a form of linguistic imperialism for
Latin Americans Latin Americans (; ) are the citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their diasporas are multi-ethnic and multi-racial. Latin Americans are ...
. Another argument against ''Latinx'' is that "it erases feminist movements in the 1970s" that fought for use of the word ''Latina'' to represent women, according to George Cadava, Director of the Latina and Latino Studies program at
Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...
. Writing for ''Latino Rebels,'' Hector Luis Alamo describes the term as a "bulldozing of Spanish". In a 2015 article published by the outlet as part of a debate on the term, Alamo wrote: "If we dump ''Latino'' for ''Latinx'' because it offends some people, then we should go on dumping words forever since there will always be some people who find some words offensive."
Wayne State University Wayne State University (WSU) is a public university, public research university in Detroit, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 375 programs. It is Michigan's third-l ...
professor Nicole Trujillo-Pagán has argued that patriarchal bias is reproduced in ostensibly "gender neutral" language and stated, "Less clear in the debate (as it has developed since then) is how the replacement silences and erases long-standing struggles to recognize the significance of gender difference and sexual violence." A 2019 National Survey of Latinos found that only 3 percent of Hispanic-Latinos have ever used "Latinx" to describe themselves. The League of United Latin American Citizens announced in 2021 that it would stop using the term in its official communications, calling it "very unliked" by nearly all Latinos. A 2024 study found that use of the term ''Latinx'' by Democratic politicians alienates Latino voters from the party, and that Latino voters are less likely to support Democrats who use ''Latinx'' than those who use ''Latino'' in their otherwise identical messaging. Skepticism behind the term's inclusivity has also been posited. Florida Atlantic University professor Cristobal Salinas Jr. argues that, despite being connected to Indigenous cultures and languages, the term is not inclusive of Indigenous cultures outside of Mexico, where the letter "x" is not part of their respective vocabularies. Additionally, Salinas Jr. contends that the term's inconsistent usage across texts defending the term's inclusivity of LGBTQ people "has created confusion between gender and sexual identity".


Similar terms

Similar gender-neutral forms have also arisen. One such term is ''Latin@'', which combines the written form of the and endings. Similar terms include '' Chicanx'' and the variant spelling '' Xicanx''. '' Latine'' (plural: ''Latines'') as a gender-neutral term is less prevalent than ''Latinx'' within the U.S., although the opposite is true throughout the Spanish-speaking world. In the U.S., "Latine" arose out of
genderqueer Non-binary or genderqueer gender identities are those that are outside the male/female gender binary. Non-binary identities often fall under the transgender umbrella since non-binary people typically identify with a gender that is differ ...
speakers' use of the ending ; similar forms include ''amigue'' ('friend') and ''
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'' ( singular ''they''). In Argentina, efforts to increase gender neutrality in Spanish have utilized both grammatical genders together, as well as and endings. According to ''The New York Times'', the ending has been more widely adopted because it is easier to pronounce. In Portuguese, the use of , with
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, is preferred over , with a
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.


See also

* Feminist language reform *
Gender neutrality in languages with grammatical gender Gender neutrality in languages with grammatical gender is the usage of wording that is balanced in its treatment of the genders in a non-grammatical sense. For example, advocates of gender-neutral language challenge the traditional use of mascu ...
*
Gender neutrality in English Gender-neutral language is language that avoids assumptions about the social gender or biological sex of people referred to in speech or writing. In contrast to most other Indo-European languages, English does not retain grammatical gender and mo ...
*
Grammatical gender in Spanish In Spanish language, Spanish, grammatical gender is a linguistic feature that affects different types of words and how they Agreement (linguistics), agree with each other. It applies to Spanish nouns, nouns, Spanish adjectives, adjectives, Spanis ...
* Gender neutrality in Portuguese *
Hispanic–Latino naming dispute ''Hispanic'' and '' Latino'' are ethnonyms used to refer collectively to the inhabitants of the United States who are of Spanish or Latin American ancestry (). While many use the terms interchangeably, for example, the United States Census Bure ...
*
Mx (title) ''Mx'' () is an English-language neologistic honorific that does not indicate gender. Created as an alternative to gendered honorifics (such as '' Mr.'' and ''Ms.'') in the late 1970s, it is the most common gender-neutral title among non-binar ...
*
Spanish orthography Spanish orthography is the orthography used in the Spanish language. The alphabet uses the Latin script. The spelling is fairly phonemic orthography, phonemic, especially in comparison to more opaque orthographies like English orthography, Engl ...
* Womxn * Womyn


References


Notes

*


Further reading

* * * * * * * {{Cite web , last=Padilla , first=Yesenia , date=April 16, 2016 , title=What does 'Latinx' mean? A look at the term that's challenging gender norms , url=https://www.complex.com/life/2016/04/latinx/ , website=Complex 2000s neologisms 2004 neologisms American political neologisms Hispanic and Latino Gender-neutral language Nonstandard spelling Spanish grammar Spanish language in the United States Linguistic controversies LGBTQ Hispanic and Latino American culture LGBTQ-related controversies in the United States English exonyms Racism in the United States