• chatokun@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 days ago

    As someone mentioned, it’s because Latinas rather than Latinos. Some people have used Latinx or something similar to denote both, but I saw some backlash on that and am not sure if it’s preferee. Anyway, historically Latinos denotes either male or just general pop, kinda like mankind does in English.

    Latinas on the other hand is specifically feminine, so it’s like “mothers against drunk driving” type organizations, specifically named to signify that it’s women. so they weren’t being sexist, just responding to the specificity in like manner.

    • DarkSurferZA@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I was being sarcastic, sorry, I thought it was obvious by the tone. My fault.

      Also, I want to for real (not sarcastic) thank this entire thread for the most “beat him with the book” ass whipping I have received since joining Lemmy. stuff I genuinely didn’t know about the use of Latinx 's.

      Anyway, can we leave my internet points in tact please, I may need them one day for a thing. Was really just trying to be funny with some sarcasm sprinkled in.

    • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Speaking as a Mexican in Mexico, the Latinx backlash was from Latino-Americans. We use it quite a bit here, especially in the LGBT community by people being trans inclusive.

      The reason is that we don’t have the same historical hangups, and we also have a long history of trying to use gender neutral words and failing every time.

      At one point in the 90s we were using Latin@ because of the web. Now the current gender neutral forms favored end in “e” as in Latine, but this has also been met with plenty of mockery and backlash.

      So, please, use Latinx. It’s fine, you can even pronounce it Latino or Latin-x if you want.

      A published author I know used x to form gender neutral words in his recently published book and I found it amusing: