Thread by @nelsonlflores

So in addition to the hatred of Latinx from the Brotinos who insist that Latino is already gender neutral are people who hate Latinx because they say everybody should be using Latine instead. Prescriptivist impositions is never the path to liberation though.

The idea that one term should be the only correct way of describing a large and diverse group of people with different nationalities, social classes, religions, phenotypes, gender identities etc. (which is true for literally every ethnoracial category) is misguided at best.

So instead of insisting that everybody should use your preferred term(s) maybe a more useful point of entry might be to explain to others why you prefer a specific term and assume that they have put as much thought into their preferred term(s) as you have

I prefer Latinx because in the communities I currently navigate as a US-born English dominant cis gay Latino it is recognizable as a term that challenges both the patriarchal framing of the masculine as gender neutral and the heternormative framing of gender as binary.

My understanding is that -e rather than -x ending is more common in feminist and queer circles in Latin America. If I were to one day be navigating those spaces it is likely I would switch. But I don’t think every context need to agree on the same ending or terms.

One of my discomforts with how the case for Latine gets made in the US is that it often relies on purist language ideologies that suggest that the -e is more natural in Spanish despite the fact that many Spanish speakers in the US (including me) use the -x just fine.

Also, not all US born Latinxs speak Spanish so whether a term is natural in Spanish is irrelevant to how they decide to define themselves to the world. It is a different context than Latin America so different strategies should be expected.

To be clear, I am not making a case for Latinx over Latine. I am describing my personal decision based on my experiences and the arguments I have heard. But the real battle is against patriarchal and heteronormative frames and I support any and all efforts to fight them!