As the LGBTQ+ movement has taken off, we find more and more people feeling left out because of the heteronormative culture in the US. Slowly but surely, it has become increasingly important to create environments that anyone and everyone can feel safe in. Creating things such as workplaces that are welcoming to members of the LGBTQ+ community has become a crucial part of living in the 21st century. Since the legalization of gay marriage in all 50 states on June 26th of 2015, the movement has gained momentum and many things are starting to change. In the Time article “Why ‘LatinX’ is Succeeding While Other Gender-Neutral Terms Fail to Catch On” by Katy Steinmetz, she discusses multiple points regarding why the use of the new gender-neutral term is taking over. Her article has an eye-catching title, is organized in a way that makes it easy to read and provides intriguing information. She works to introduce the “LatinX” pronoun and give the background of where it originated as well as who it was created for.
Katy Steinmetz begins by explaining how a majority of gender-neutral terms have failed at getting much usage. For example, pronouns such as xe and zir that have been pushed but have not made it to be commonly used. She creates a background for how difficult it is to get gender-neutral terms into mainstream media and professional spaces. She mentions how slowly but surely, we will see an increasing amount of gender-neutral terms all around us without even realizing their purpose. For example, we have already seen “first-year student” pop-up all-over college and high school campuses for inclusivity. Although she believes we still have “a long way to go” Steinmetz goes on to address how there are some changes that have been put in place. The change from flight attendant to alum was one that surprised her. She uses these examples to transition into the word that is the star of the show- LatinX.
The term LatinX is one that has started discussion surrounding it. Steinmetz claims that we can see it being slowly legitimized in academic centers, media outlets, and most importantly to her, dictionaries. Oxford Dictionary has defined it as “A person of Latin America origin or descent (used as a gender-neutral or non-binary alternative to Latino or Latina)”. Many of the gender-neutral terms we see are gradually getting more use and these big media outlets are raising our awareness specifically to kickstart their use. However, like with most things, there is controversy surrounding the -x ending of the term. The strong feminist connotation works against the patriarchal terms we see commonly used in daily use. Words such as guys or latinos to refer to groups where women are present amongst men represent the idea that “It’s a man’s world, you ladies are just in it” according to Steinmetz. This point is very strong in her argument. As a collective society, rarely ever do we question why large groups are mostly referred to using masculine words and never feminine. It is an interesting concept to question because most things that you think of will lead you back to Steinmetz’s conclusion that it is to “reaffirm the patriarchy”. It serves as a subliminal reminder that men are the ones who hold the power while women are just place holders.
Not only is the term LatinX meaningful to feminists, as previously mentioned, it plays a huge role in the LGBTQ+ community. The term has become very useful when referring to Latin people who do identify as non-binary or gender-neutral. Rather than following the heteronormative he/she role, LatinX is used in place to avoid the misgendering or non-binary Latin people and is meant to be a slightly more specific term comparable to they.
Steinmetz proceeds to explain how it took a few other steps to come to the conclusion of choosing LatinX as the final term. The subject of finding a gender neutral term for Latin people had been debated on for quite some time with options such as “(Latino/a)”, and “Latin@” coming into question. The options worked on paper, however, when deciding the pronunciation, neither was clear enough to be used. Steinmetz explains how the word LatinX is meant to be pronounced like Kleenex. In the Oxford Dictionary, an option to hear how the word is pronounced is present and that is how the audio clip sounds as well. The -x has symbolized many things throughout history and Steinmetz goes on to explain why linguist, Ben Zimmer believes it was the most fitting choice.