As a Latino who speaks Spanish I am so sick of people using “Latinix”. 95% of the time it’s used by white people who don’t speak Spanish. It is not your job to make a “gender neutral” word for us just because you don’t understand our language. Latina is for just women, Latino is for just men, Latinos is for BOTH. It is GENDER NUTERAL. Just like Abeula is grandma, Abuelo is grandpa, and Abuelos would be the gender-neutral term for grandparents.

(This is ok for non Latinos/Spanish speakers to reblog)

I understand the “white people who don’t speak Spanish use the term” thing, but I need to let you know that some of us actually use the “x” or the “e” as a gender neutral/inclusive language option. Personally, I go by female prononuns, but some friends of mine who prefer gender neutral ones don’t like the “o” and will use the “e”/”x” instead. Other’s won’t care. And some other people will come whining about how we can’t use “todes” instead of “todos” because it hasn’t been approved by the RAE… (even if the RAE is just a bunch of old dudes who accept atrocities such as “alverjas” (arvejas), “toballa” (toalla), “almóndigas” (albóndigas), “murciégalo” (murciélago) as correct words but will blabber about how language can’t be deformed to have gender neutral words that don’t sound like the masculine… )

idk… 

I’m from Latin America and as a Spanish speaker I can tell you that those words are not gender neutral! Todos (all) is masculine and todas (all) is femenine. Most words have no gender neutral version in our dictionary, therefore, there’s no representation for people who prefer gender neutral pronouns or women. The use of “todos” is supposed to include both women and men, but it’s clearly masculine.

The same happens with other pronouns. Here are some: “ella” (she), “él” (he), “ellas” (femenine form of them), “ellos” (masculine form of them), “nosotras” (femenine form of we), “nosotros” (masculine form of we). As you see there is no equivalent of “they” for people who prefer gender neutral pronouns, making them invisible in our language.

You should also remember that in Latin America, our society is very conservative, barely accepting lgbtqia+ people. Trans people are the ones who suffer the most because of this (I’m not the best to say this as I’m not trans, but it must be said). This is why what our (mostly religious) governments and dictionaries say isn’t important in this situation. Because they don’t care about the welfare of minorities and some- if not most- are literally against their rights. So I don’t care that the RAE says “todos” is neutral, it’s not.

This is why nowadays most lgbtqia+ people decided to start replacing the “o” in words like “todos, nosotros, ellos” (all, we, them) with an “X” or “e”, creating the possibility of a gender neutral pronoun meaning “they”: Elle. It gives an opportunity to those who don’t want to be called “él o ella” (he or she) and includes everyone in our language. This new pronouns are very rarely used in public and mostly used written as “Latinx” instead of “latines”, the latter being more inclusive.

This is why it’s so important. But like gender neutral pronouns aren’t considered correct, they are ridiculed by most people. Why should you accept people who prefer “they/them” pronouns but not “elle”? They may have invented that pronoun, yes, but that was due to a lack of representation in their own language which basically erased their identities!

I’m not saying this is a permanent matter of fact, there are constant debates in the community but this is the latest update I can give you and a way to be an ally to the Latin American LGBTQIA+ community. Sorry for the long post.

Please reblog this, Latin American or not. It’s okay to want to spread awareness but don’t just spread hurtful information from the first Latin American you encounter without knowing the counterargument.