In this section, we’re going to be discussing the term “Latinx.” It’s kind of an extension of last week’s topic, but we’re bringing in a specific example this time.

If you’re familiar with the Spanish language, you know the terms “Latinos” and “Latinas.” You know that Spanish is a pretty gendered language; it has masculine and feminine forms of words. In the traditional version of Spanish, you wouldn’t use anything besides the structured way of gendering words. You would probably never use Latinx, because you have Latinos and Latinas (and “el” and “las” and whatnot) to cover everything traditional Spanish thinks there is to cover.

Well, the world is changing--and it spares no language with its metamorphosis into inclusiveness.

Around 2004, the term “Latinx” was coined to describe people who didn’t identify with solely “latinos” or “latinas.” This helps out the nonbinary community; you don’t have to be completely male, completely female, or either! Latinx is an inclusive term that describes those who have been excluded from the lexicon previously.

Latinx can be a really great instrument for change; it can promote acceptance of the nonbinary genders (and anyone else who wants to identify with Latinx). By giving Latinx people a way of identifying and defining themselves in the Spanish language, they can more fully immerse themselves in their culture and heritage.

If there was no term to describe them in their own language, they may feel excluded from the whole Spanish/Hispanic culture. Before Latinx, these people essentially felt ignored--or even rejected--by their own language. Imagine if you couldn’t define yourself using your native tongue; how would you feel about using this language every day to communicate other things, but not the very basis of who you are?

The traditional, gendered version of Spanish tends to favor masculine words over feminine words. For example, a group of females will be called latinas; however, if just one male joins the group, the entire group will now be called latinos. It’s as if the one male overpowered the entire group of females. The same thing happens in Chinese; there is a masculine “them” and a feminine “them.” When a group of females get together--if everyone in that group is female--it will be labeled with the feminine “them.” Like in Spanish, if a male joins the group, the group will be labeled with the masculine “them.”

For this reason, some people like the “latinx” movement because it works to get rid of the advantage that masculine words have over feminine words. With these small linguistic changes, societal changes can happen as well.

Latinx has finally gained popularity in use over the last few years; this can be partially attributed to the wide use of it on social media platforms, such as Twitter. Professors, journalists, and activists have also started using it to propel its power. These people realize that their profession allows them to influence a group of people with the language they choose to use, so they choose to use inclusive words.

While some people fear that Latinx is a way to dismantle tradition, there is evidence to prove otherwise. If a language doesn’t change, it will die. A rigid language cannot live; everything around it changes, so it cannot stay frozen in time. Latinx is not a weapon to destroy the beauty that already exists. Rather, it’s a canvas on which a group of people can paint their own future--and it adds to the bigger picture of the culture.

Another issue we should address is the fact that Spanish is a European language that was imposed on many groups of indigenous tribes during colonization. For the indigenous people groups of Latin and South America, the forced Spanish has now become a very important part of their culture. However, the Spanish language also took away a lot of cultural freedom when it was first thrown on the tribes.

Many of the indigenous tribes recognized fluid gender long before colonialism came to the Americas. Maybe, in these cultures, there even existed a third gender. There were many deities of indigenous tribes who were bigender or who didn’t fit with just one gender. When Spanish colonizers came and forced their language on the indigenous tribes, those tribes didn’t know how to communicate the fluid genders they once expressed so freely.

Again, since Spanish is such a binary gender-structured language, the indigenous tribes were only given masculine and feminine words--nothing in between. The rise of Latinx is finally providing them with the tool that they had been missing for centuries, and they may once again be able to label their true genders with language.

While Latinx may not be a perfect term, the beauty of it comes from the fact that it’s so open to change. As the culture keeps shifting, its language will too. We’ll just have to wait and see where it takes us next.

Speaking of what comes next, keep your eyes peeled for the next article!