• nublug@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      10 months ago

      i know that every time ‘latinx’ comes up online it gets spammed with ‘rich white libs made it up’ replies but i’ve also seen deep in those comment chains people claiming to be latin american trans people and that the term was created by the latin american trans community itself.

      also, typically those replying with the above knee jerk ‘white libs’ response tend to be far right when i dug into their histories. on youtube and reddit over the years, that is. haven’t seen this discourse on lemmy. also i don’t have any sources for the origin of the term, just thought you might want to reconsider potentially being hateful to the latin american trans community if that wasn’t your intention.

      and tbh, even if it was some dem focus group in new york that came up with it, it’s pretty easy to see that trans people might take the above kind of response to that term as one rooted in hatred.

        • nublug@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          10 months ago

          my understanding is latinx and latine are pronounced exactly the same, just different spelling. you’re using latine while saying latinx is dumb and made up by shitlibs?

          • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            10 months ago

            I’m Latino, latine seems more plausible based on how I grew up. I just hate how it’s a single letter off from latrine.

            Do we jump the rules for something really new to our society? Maybe. I personally think a lot of this is rooted in people’s limited understanding of how postfixes work in Spanish, American education for example explains that anything ending with a = feminine, o = masculine, but that ignores context and etymology which I won’t go into here.

            I’d equate it to our initial minor discomfort with referring to humanity as ‘mankind’, anyone with more than trivial education understands the word to be non-gendered.

            • MindTraveller@lemmy.ca
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              edit-2
              10 months ago

              Actually English native feminists and leftists tend to avoid using the word “mankind”. The more time passes, the more that word is considered a relic of a misogynist past that’s no longer relevant. You still see that sort of language in old books like The Lord Of The Rings, where humans are referred to a “men”, regardless of gender. And it’s jarring to modern readers who are native speakers. People aren’t used to it anymore.

              English speakers are improving our language to remove sexism and Spanish speakers are too. Language is a tool, it’s supposed to help people. If it’s not helping people, it needs to be repaired or upgraded.

              • barsoap@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                0
                ·
                10 months ago

                Historically, “man” is absolutely neutral, meaning “human, person”. You then have wif for woman and wer for man and also wifman and werman. I think it would’ve been better to go back to those terms, already tried and true just fallen out of use after the Norman conquest, than to try to haphazardly and awkwardly declare the use of the term “mankind” sexist. Cudgels and shibboleths invented by the performative faction to have a way to deem themselves morally superior.