r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Character_Growth_397 • 13h ago

Hated Tropes Things meant to be progressive just end up being incredibly offensive

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What If - In one of the comics Miles becomes Thor, and it's full of stereotypes about black people such as the Mjolnir having graffiti on it and the infamous "by Odin's fade"

Emilia Perez - Everything about the movie

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u/dddoinyomom 13h ago

The term Latinx (real life)

It turns out virtually all Hispanic people don’t care for performative white people telling them how to use their own language

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u/The-Ka-the-ba-and-Ra 12h ago

My job offered a cultural sensitivity training and at one point, the presenter (a white woman) stopped herself after speaking on the “latinx” community to clarify that most latinx do not prefer that term - - and then continued on using that very word throughout the rest of the presentation.

I was like, wait, what?

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u/MeliodasTA 12h ago

Sounds like she was being forced to say it but also thought it was stupid

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u/GranolaCola 12h ago

100% a corporate mandate that she just couldn’t keep her mouth shut about (rightfully).

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u/atyourfeet6 11h ago

I worked for the Census back in 2010 as one of my first jobs and we were forced to ask if someone was 'Black, African American, or Negro' because it was in a script the government gave us. If we deviated from their script we'd get in trouble.

So almost certainly this.

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u/AggravatingBid8255 46m ago

Did anyone try to eat your liver for that?

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u/TheChunkMaster 10h ago

That, or just force of habit

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u/maxedonia 11h ago

This reminds me of a similar experience I had in a LGBTQ+ sensitivity training about a decade ago where two gay men got in a rather heated argument that derailed the presentation. The older man grew up in an environment where the term “queer” was unsafe and not considered positive in his community growing up. The younger man couldn’t understand or just downright refused to acknowledge the older man’s perspective. Things escalated until one of them had to leave the session. I found the entire interaction more engaging and informative than what was otherwise monotonous corporate jargon.

For context, the term “queer” had recently been added to the LGBTQ+ community by GLAAD.

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u/bee_my_girl 10h ago

I get that "queer" is pretty widely accepted and defanged now, but holy shit I cannot imagine looking an older gay/trans person in the eyes and saying "erm, you're not allowed to be uncomfortable with this word, I'VE decided it's fine!" Like, dude, just say LGBT for the presentation if someone in the room has bad experiences with "queer."

I grew up in a place where "queer" was still seen as a slur and used against folks like me, and the amount of flack I get from people (usually those from big cities/very progressive circles) for asking that we consider the feelings of those not from the same area or those with different life experience is insane. Ironically, I've also seen the same people who insist that "queer" should never ever offend anyone flip out when an older trans person calls themself "transsexual" instead of "transgender" because it's offensive.

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u/Prowl2681 7h ago

I swear sometimes the worst enemy one will have against inclusivity and progress are the progressive themselves who believe they just know better and put us all in a nicely labeled box.

I'm Latino and the times I've seen some progressive folks wonder how we can be right wing because we're immigrants is why they keep losing voters. To explain that being an immigrant is not our whole identity and it does not bind us to an entire point of view or that we outright agree with everything their side of the aisle is about. We're more than a label.

We have to recognize we all lead different lives and experiences, that we hold different values. Accommodating those who grew up with a lot more bullshit and hardships than we did is compassion, not the erosion of progress.

And you can say oh that word is fine now, but if you're not ok with it that is fine too because it has a history and weight for you and no one here can decide how you get to carry that.

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u/carso150 7h ago

reminds me of C.S. Lewis quote

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth

when a person believes they are morally right then they can justify any action and dismiss the opinions of anyone else, because they know they are right and everyone else is wrong

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u/Prowl2681 7h ago

I'm saving this, thank you.

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u/rikers-evil-twin 6h ago

The progressive era was really interesting because they worked to end child labor and allow women to vote while at the same time nannying everyone into not drinking alcohol and "westernizing" Native Americans. That CS Lewis quote always makes me think perhaps he saw that during this period.

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u/carso150 5h ago

its a universal problem, and its a problem because people hate being told what to do or having things they like taken away because of someone getting on top of their soap box and moral grandstanding, thats just a good way to get people to opose you out of spite and spite is a very powerful force

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u/cl0ckw0rkcuttlefish 56m ago

I even identify as “queer” and when I run into that, I just say I fully understand and I’d never dream of making them use it, I just find it easier than bringing out the identity PowerPoint.

It’s really not hard to be respectful of others’ experiences. Or, well, I guess it is…

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u/sorrelchestnut 9h ago

See I usually see the opposite interaction, where it's a young person saying 'oh we don't use the q slur here' and older people going 'I'm fuckin' queer, jesus.'  It's interesting to see that argument goes both ways.  But that's just the moving target nature of slang I guess.  For my two cents, my personal rage button is people using "fruity" as a quirky-fun way of saying gay, like that wasn't a slur of all time for my generation.  I'd honestly rather someone called me a faggot with their whole chest and hate in their heart than a supposed ally calling me fruity.

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u/maxedonia 9h ago

Oh yeah, def agree on that last point too. At face value it seems so benign, but the actual way it is has been used in practice usually has harmful connotations that only tokenize gayness when used by hetero ppl. Ick

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u/boinkdoinkmaloink 8h ago

I'm a gay pastor, and I remember in seminary, the queer student organization hosted one of our weekly worship meetings on campus. The whole thing was set up as a kind of spiritual conversation about the word queer, carried out between the young, 20 something president of the group and an older professor of music who had grown up gay in the deep south. We could acknowledge how a word that I and a lot of my contemporaries find liberative could be intrinsically painful to others (the older man in question memorably said that, for him, queer would always sound like it was coming from the back of a pickup truck). I still think about that a lot, especially when I get involved in queer activist circles. I wish we took the time and consideration to hear each other more often.

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u/rikers-evil-twin 8h ago edited 6h ago

I'm gay and over 40 and very offended by the word queer but keep my mouth shut about it. It was the main word old people back in the day used to shout slurs at you.

edit: I should not say 'very offended by', I just wince at it.

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u/maxedonia 8h ago

I understand this may not be directly helpful, but I wanted to share that I am your age and I held the same assumption growing up. My parents also have gay friends so I think being around adults helped to shape my understanding.

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u/soundsaboutright11 8h ago

I referred to myself as queer and my mother just about had a conniption. Said I shouldn’t call myself that because it’s an insult. The times, they are a changin’

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u/Melodic_Throat_235 12h ago

How do you even pronounce that?

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u/Sharp_Low6787 11h ago

literally just "Latin-ex" it's so fucking stupid

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u/BrockStar92 11h ago

Tbf, pronouncing it Latinks would be even worse.

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u/Jupiter_Crush 11h ago

That's how I always read it. The Latinks Community.

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u/TSouthcotte 10h ago

Pronouncing it this way has been the best way to get people to stop using it.

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u/Suitable_Natural_814 10h ago

Legend of Zelda: Latinks Awakening

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u/SouthamptonGuild 11h ago

Latine stood there saying "am I a joke to you?" 

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u/100KUSHUPS 12h ago

Sounds like she needs some cultural sensitivity training.

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u/vacri 5h ago

It's bizarre they didn't just go for 'latine', which uses sounds that are actually in the most popular language spoken by that demographic.

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u/mayhaps_a 8h ago

There was, once, an attempt by extreme left spaces to neutralize spanish by using the E as a gender neutral thing. For example "latino" "latina" and "latine". It got really loud but ultimately it mostly died because most people just don't care. It was tumblr progressivism 

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u/Severe_Signature_900 5h ago

Interesting. Kind of good that they at least acknowledged it. I guess the idea is use the term if the person prefers it and don't if not.

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u/NoTeslaForMe 4h ago

Very typical behavior of those who have more enlightenment than empathy.  I was at a workshop where the moderator asked everyone's pronouns - all others were "she," if I recall correctly - then proceeded to refer to each person with only the "they" pronoun.

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u/chudazoid_ 12h ago

Whats weird is that not only is latinx not phonetic to spanish in any way, but adding an e to the end of gendered words is already the accepted way to make them gender neutral

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u/Rarte96 11h ago edited 8h ago

Well i wouldnt say accepted, most people dont use it, but them again nonbinary people are not common here and the ones who would want to use the E are even less common

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u/SignalScientist2817 8h ago

it's not that they're not common, it's that our language is gendered (male and female words), so trying to include a "neutral" gender to the mix would need to add a whole new dictionary. Some people don't use gender neutral words not because they're bigots, it just sounds weird to them.

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u/interwebz_2021 7h ago

People don't seem to understand that the gender of a word doesn't necessarily convey the typical gender attributes/associations on that word. I mean, "dress" is "vestido" (masculine) and "necktie" is "corbata" (feminine). So maybe we non-Spanish-speaking lefties should have kept our noses out of it. I hope never to hear "Latinx" again; I denounce and correct it when I do, and I sure hope we never make this kind of mistake again.

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u/Wild_Marker 11h ago

Yeah that's the thing, we already have our own way of doing that.

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u/temporarilyHere3 10h ago

I never kept up studying Spanish after school and never learned this in school. Cool to learn something new like this. So does a word like amigo becomes amige?

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u/SmartAlec105 9h ago

amige

How am I supposed to know if you're gay?

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u/Pale_Dark_656 11h ago

But knowing that would require them to talk to native Spanish speakers and *gasp* listen to what they say, and we can't have that.

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u/SlavojVivec 2h ago

The -x suffix is not meant to be phonetic. It's supposed to be a reference to crossing out the gender suffix on political posters with an 'x', and is still pronounced -e.

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u/DullBlade0 1h ago

What?

Who came up with all this stuff?

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u/Deer-in-Motion 12h ago edited 12h ago

Exactly! When I first saw it I wondered just how to pronounce it. You can't. I'm a white liberal and I'm not going to dictate to others how to use their own language.

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u/Gerald_Fred 13h ago

Add Filipinx, Filo, and Philipinno to the list

Literally feels like that one Inglorious Bastards scene, because it completely shows how out of fucking touch someone is when they use those terms unironically

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u/BrockStar92 11h ago

It’s not related to race, but “folx” is by far the worst of these. Folks is already gender neutral!!

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u/whimsical_spider 7h ago

Some people will always wanna hate on the southern “ya’ll” but hey - it’s inherently gender neutral!

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u/eukomos 6h ago

Ugh, that is the worst performative bullshit. And when you ask people who do that why they think it's helpful, you never get a coherent explanation.

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u/BrockStar92 6h ago

The “official” explanation is that you’re making it clear that you’re trying to be inclusive. Like that’s the purpose of it, to signal you’re an ally rather than coincidentally using inclusive language by virtue of native dialect.

So performative bullshit, yes.

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u/CJCroen1393 2h ago

My sister told me about that one and needless to say, I was baffled.

The weirdest part to me is the fact that, phonetically, it's identical to "folks", so what is even the point? If you're saying it out loud, it's going to sound exactly the same!

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u/-PepeArown- 12h ago

Filipinx sounds like the name of a Pokemon

Would honestly be great sounding in any other context but this one

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u/icantbeatyourbike 1h ago

It sounds like someone from Yorkshire in the UK, it’s a very mild term of surprise “Flippin’ Heck!”

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u/Mahirofan 12h ago

It's even worse since Filipino doesn't have gendered language differences the way Spanish does too. It's a problem pretending to be a solution to a nonexistent problem

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u/Smart_Freedom_8155 11h ago

Filipinx

What a punch in the gut of a word. Like a 90s cartoon version of an evil spell.

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u/butyourenice 11h ago

What’s wrong with the last one (other than being misspelled?)?

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u/MandolinMagi 8h ago

Philipinno to the list

To be fair, the nation is the Philippines, so assuming the word for the natives starts "Ph" instead of "F" makes at least some sense.

Filo...pretty sure that's a type of dough?

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u/Then-Mechanic-1099 6h ago

I really despise "FILO". We ain't pastry, so stop calling us/yourself Filo.

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u/Exasperatess 6h ago

Isn't "phillipinno" basically just a typo? Can someone explain whats so wrong about that term in text? Since I'm assuming itd just sound like "Filipino" out loud

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u/fresh-dork 9h ago

i dunno, next to that, Flip doesn't seem so bad - is this more of the degendering gendered languages thing?

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u/yarntank 8h ago

Which scene?

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u/El_Disclamador 3h ago

Philipinno/Philippino makes me feel like a cucumber

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u/CJCroen1393 2h ago

Also "Pinxy" in place of "Pinoy" or "Pinay".

How is that even supposed to be pronounced!?!?

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u/Nknk- 13h ago

It's been interesting watching Hispanic people's quite noticeable and vocal complaints over Latinx being forced on them being resoundly ignored by the people pushing it.

Painfully paternalistic attitude that's full on "Bless, they don't know what's best for them but we do so just ignore them and they'll get used to the word".

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u/DAVID_Gamer_5698 13h ago

It was even more stupid since the term Latino is already a gender neutral word.

It was people that don't know shit about a gendered language trying to gemder neutral an already neutral word.

This is one of the reasons most people in LATAM laugh at people from the U.S that say they are Latino yet the only thing from Central or South America that they have is their grandfather.

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u/Wardock8 12h ago

Like they deadass teach this shit in school. Do people not have mandatory Spanish in other parts of the country?

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u/Charming-Shake-6525 11h ago

nope, lol. new mexico, texas, and maryland schools do not require spanish.

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u/Holiday_Tap_4358 6h ago

I’m from Southern California and didn’t take Spanish in school. A foreign language was mandatory and most people took Spanish but I’ve never heard of mandatory Spanish 

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u/BeefStank420 12h ago

"Latino" is gendered. "Latin American" on the other hand actually is gender neutral and was already in use when they invented latinx. There was literally no reason to invent that word, just say Latin American.

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u/CoffeeWanderer 11h ago

So, technically, the male noun is also the neutral one. That's how it's supposed to work and you can see this in English where some texts use "He" but mean any person, especially in law.

Now, in English the singular "They" is used to avoid the neutral gendered "He", in Spanish there's not a widely used alternative.

I prefer adding an "e" instead of "o" for gender neutral, but this is not standard yet and you get funny things there too.

"Presidente" is gender neutral, but many people use "Presidenta" as a female noun. It's a funny case of the neutral noun becoming a male one. "Presidento" doesn't exist at all.

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u/TotalBlissey 11h ago

I feel like "Latine" would be great if people end up adopting it, but I also barely speak a lick of Spanish so I don't think I can really weigh in.

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u/papamajada 10h ago

non binary ppl here in LATAM use latine or gender neutral "-e" language often so it could work.

Latinx is very much a usa thing

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u/DSoopy 7h ago

It could but it will take a long ass time to be adopted by the general population. It's hard to convey in another language but the use of gendered words is so core to Spanish that using "e" to replace it sounds very very weird

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u/dovahkiitten16 11h ago

The problem is that “male as gender neutral” is usually less that a language is genuinely neutral, but because of a patriarchal “male is default, female is other” attitude.

I don’t speak Spanish and have no connection to the culture, so I’m not trying to weigh in on that specific case. But using English as an example, when we’ve rightfully dismantled using he/man as being wrong, isn’t a great argument.

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u/CoffeeWanderer 11h ago

True, I agree that adding a truly gender neutral alternative would be for the best. I just hate random X at the end of words for that.

Hell, I've seen Latin@ before, and that one is actually better, just read it as Latino y Latina

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u/MagicPants97 10h ago

When I was studying a few years ago, my university started using the -x ending in general emails, but then it was pointed out that screen readers don't handle it very well by default. Same with @, so they swapped to using -e

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u/Kuroashi_no_Sanji 11h ago

In the specific case of Spanish male is the gender neutral and 99% of Spanish speakers have no problem with it. It's just how the language is built, trying to force a gender neutral alternative just feels foreign

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u/xUnderoath 11h ago

People hate the e as much as they hate the x, possibly more.

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u/CoffeeWanderer 11h ago

Hmm, in my experience it goes like

Latine > Latin@ >>>> Latinx

The @ is from the early days of the internet and it was supposed to be a shorthand for "latinos y latinas", or any similar word for that matter. And yeah, just saying both gendered words is probably the less controversial way of doing it, but it can get tiring very quickly.

Latinx is nonsensical because it's just impossible to pronounce.

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u/MS-07B-3 10h ago

I think most people end up saying "Latin X", but I giggle inside at the thought of it being "La Tinx"

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u/HereToTalkAboutThis 9h ago

A lot of people hate any push to change gendered language because they don't like queer folks (or just don't care one way or another about them) and suggesting any changes to how we use language tends to get them to dig their heels in. This is also true in Hispanic/Latin American communities. In my experience, the Spanish speakers who do want to use more progressive language tend towards "Latine" because it's actually possible to say aloud. Don't know where a person would find reliable data on that kind of thing though

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u/ACW1129 12h ago

Wait, Latino is gender neutral? I thought it was Latino for men, Latina for women.

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u/GoodAtJunk 12h ago

‘Latino’ could apply to a mixed group of men and women but the word itself is technically masculine. ‘Latine’ is a neutral noun, and unlike Latinx is actually able to be spoken aloud, but it is a relatively new term and still follows the pattern of performative inclusivity

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u/Nothing-Is-Real-Here 8h ago

I am as progressive as it gets and I hope people can feel as comfortable as possible using language that best represents them but even I as a Latino had an aversion to the word.

Like, what is the x actually doing here? Is it a placeholder or a legitimate catch all? Do they know the x at the end there is difficult to pronounce in Spanish? It looks so ugly to just read. Hell even one of my professors who is trans acknowledged that people didn't like it and she understood why.

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u/cervogalatico 12h ago

The male version is usually the default therefore the gender neutral one

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u/RSquared 11h ago

Isn't that exactly the point, though? The use of latine/Latinx was an attempt to avoid "neutral defaults to masculine" as is common in many languages (including English, eg policeman or hero). 

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u/Rarte96 11h ago

Wich is weird when words like Presidente, Hero among others already end in E but are considered masculine by most spanish speakers

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u/xUnderoath 11h ago

Yes, that is the point except Latinos don't care about correcting something that isn't broken. Countless words in Spanish are gendered and none of them insinuate that one is better than the other. People who complain about words being masculine forget there's plenty of words gendered female, and there's nothing wrong with either.

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u/SmartAlec105 9h ago

As an outsider, I can't really say I know what's going on. But as a queer person, I doubt that 0% of the opposition to having gender neutral options in Spanish is because of bigotry.

Look at all the people that speak English and oppose gender neutral they/them solely because of bigotry even though that's been around for centuries.

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u/xUnderoath 7h ago

That may be so, but regardless of motive it's seen as something tedious and unnecessary.

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u/SmartAlec105 7h ago

If the motive is “because I don’t respect queer people”, then I feel fine disregarding their complaints. No different from an English speaker saying they/them pronouns are tedious and unnecessary.

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u/ACW1129 12h ago

Huh, TIL.

I literally don't think I knew that.

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u/KartveliaEU4 9h ago

I think it's the same with how English used to default to male pronouns more. So it's not entirely worthless of a change, but IIRC either Latin or Latine are more agreed upon for that purpose.

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u/Charlie-Addams 11h ago

Generally speaking, "latino/s" works for men while "latina/s" works for women. But "latino" is technically shorthand for "latinoamericano/a"; notice that the gendered part is at the end of the word, not in the middle. But yeah, coloquially we call men "latinos" and women "latinas" when we don't care to say the full word. You don't have this issue in English with the term "Latin American/s".

In any case, the plural in Spanish is formed by using the male/masculine? plural, so "latinos" and "latinoamericanos" is what you'd say when referring to the population of Latin America at large. (You'll need to ask a Brazilian how it works in Portuguese, tho).

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u/warukeru 11h ago

Spanish have a neutral form but is also the same as the masculine form.

"Vosotros" can mean both a group of only men or a mixed gender group.

That's why there's a modern attempt to create a different neutral form using the E. In the previous example it would be "Vosotres"

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u/Redclouds1 9h ago

Who is pushing this in the modern day though? This sounds very American

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u/TheOtterRon 9h ago

I feel like Latino as a term has fallen within the same realm as Dude or Bro or Guys. More often than not you can use them as gender neutral terms.

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u/luluciee 9h ago

It's typical in a lot of languages, certainly European languages, that the masculine form is also neutral or used if it's ambiguous.

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u/born-to-bleh 11h ago

I call the those types of guys LARPtinos

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u/Floydasaurus2 9h ago

I'm Hispanic and Latino and would argue it's more that people who dislike it are very vocal not that "most Hispanic people complain about it"

Most don't care. Mostly the vocal opponents are hard line language prescriptivists, but thats just not how the world works. Things change, and sometimes language doesn't fit the needs well enough so a new usage arrives.

But to reiterate: the vast majority absolutely do not fucking care. I'm actually in the "why not just use Latin" boat but also "people can call themselves whatever they want"

You want to talk arbitrary, more Latinos and Hispanics have beef and complicated rants about the US federal race/ethnicity reporting distinctions than anything. So I'd wager there are more people pissed at the term Hispanic than anything 😂

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u/Prowl2681 8h ago

You're right. I would notice more push back at the beginning though now mich like the rest I am indifferent towards it. But still, something needs to be said when someone is trying to label us without consulting us to begin with.

And yes, half the times I'm not sure what to pick when applying for a job because we're not a single thing. I personally can't even decline to share my ethnicity because my name is SO obviously hispanic lol.

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u/Prowl2681 11h ago

When you get to it, it's yet another label imposed on us that we never chose of our own accord. Hispanic and Latin/Latino was also placed on us by the same culture that tells me my gendered language needs to be recontextualized without giving us a chance to discuss it amongst ourselves first.

There really isn't a word to encompass everything we are, there isn't a monolithic identity despite being told so through the media to sell travel destinations or a blanket cultural identity.

That being said thanks for noticing because that feels leaps and bounds ahead of the most well meaning inclusive progressive refusing to get it because it would mean acknowledging that things aren't black and white when it comes to us.

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u/Nknk- 11h ago

I'm from Northern Ireland so have some experience with a neighbouring culture and nation trying to police what I am, how I am to speak about me and my own and even where and when we can use Irish on the island (often from a place of malice too, not just misguided progressivism) so I've a lot of sympathy for and empathy with Spanish speakers in North America.

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u/Prowl2681 10h ago

Thank you. Hopefully I'm explaining this part well but from the bits I've been exposed to of Irish history and culture, it felt as if instantly it was easy to see that we are so alike because of our experiences despite being in different parts of the world.

I'm originally from Perú and when I was old enough to learn about the Troubles it took me back to my childhood and our history with terrorism during the 80s and early 90s. I always think of the effects from that period have on adults today. We don't shake it off, it carries along with us on top of everything else, and even there I see more in common with you than someone from Spain just because we share a language.

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u/Nknk- 10h ago

You've explained it very well and are more well versed in Irish history than I am in Peruvian history but I don't remotely doubt there's a lot of strong similarities there that even a casual comparison of the two would make obvious.

And you're very much right about the old trauma being carried around by people who've lived through it. Right this moment we have the Orange Order (the organisation that the KKK was based on in the US when British-heritage people from NI migrated to America in the 1800s and took the hate with them) is trying to forceably reopen 30 year old wounds by trying to arrange their triumphalist, supremacist marches to be routed through Catholic neighbourhoods as well. And reopened old wounds it has but we'll endure, as we always have.

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u/Prowl2681 10h ago

I'm really sorry to hear. But as you said, may you endure, and one day thrive in spite of it.

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u/bgbarnard 12h ago

It really comes off like the patronizing white missionaries landing on the shore, seeking to preach the gospel to the ignorant savages. They just changed targets and tactics.

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u/Prowl2681 8h ago

Yeah. It infuriates me that we're seen as if we just don't know any better and they're coming to our rescue because they're the paragon of morality and values.

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u/HereToTalkAboutThis 9h ago

Here we fuckin go again with this

"Latinx" was spearheaded primarily by university students (many of which were Latin American themselves) in a purely academic context and, like a lot of well-meaning things that start out in collegiate circles, it's clumsy and didn't work when trying to apply it in actual everyday use. Mostly because it's impossible to actually pronounce with Spanish phonetics and it kinda sounds like shit anyways, to be totally honest

There have been multiple alternatives presented but it's always an uphill battle trying to deliberately change a language. "Latine" is, as far as I can tell, the one with the most staying power because it actually works linguistically (with the wrinkle that sometimes changing a masculine or feminine form of a word to an -e changes it into another word entirely, but that's language for you).

Acceptance for queer/LGBT (whatever term you wanna use here) people is still not great in a lot of the world and in many communities. This includes Hispanic and LATAM demographics. All of this "Hispanic people don't NEED your white language impositions and everything is perfectly fine as it is" stuff is a line that got pushed by reactionaries both inside and outside those communities, and it succeeded in killing off a lot of serious discussion about the politics and problems of being queer in a place that largely doesn't accept it.

Maybe you mean well, but you're also treating Hispanic people as a monolithic group with unified ideas about their language. Hispanic and LATAM people aren't noble savages with a pure language that has no ramifications for society that can never be discussed. I personally know several queer Hispanic folks who could explain all of this in far more detail than I can.

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u/kirbyourenthusiasm11 6h ago

I feel like I've seen a handful of white people use "Latinx" and exclusively in a looking-over-my-shoulder-am-I-doing-this-right kind of way, and only people of Latin American descent using it in an enthusiastic way and in lefty political settings. But Chadwick Rodriguez of Miami says it was invented by woke whites and so here we are

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u/Mr_Halitosis 43m ago

Maybe people who are a minority group should stop trying to police everyone around them. Maybe they should sit down and have a conversation with the people around them and try negotiating.

Half of the hate towards trans people is due to trans people forcing their way into everything. No, I’m sorry, trans people have not historically been treated worse than slaves. No, I’m sorry, the battered women’s group isn’t required to accept you just because you’ve transitioned. No, I’m sorry, it’s impossible to genocide a group that has no distinct culture or genetics. Why is every outspoken trans activist always a trans woman who spent most of their life living as, and being treated as, a man? Does nobody wonder why so many trans men tend to sit back and not be incredibly outspoken?

Bigots aren’t going to tolerate being told they have to change shit by a minority group they already don’t like. And it’s fucking absurd that anyone thought that was a good tactic.

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u/SigismundsChair 12h ago

Because the people pushing it adhere to idpol as a literal religion and under their ideological structure gendered language is worse than racism and worse than colonialism since their entire movement is foundationally built on the premise that everything is a social construct and language can be used to shape those constructs and therefore reality.  

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u/GrenHamblett 11h ago

And you'll still find hundreds of Redditors and TikTokers eager to correct them without any self-reflection

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u/DarkTastesDarkStars 2h ago

Your post is such utter bullshit. I am both a liberal academic and live in a hispanic neighborhood and no one has said or mentioned latinx outside of online comments like yours for years. Stop spreading this bullshit mate. Stop pretending like an army of liberals is using latinx still let alone forcing it onto hispanics.

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u/JudithSlayHolofernes 12h ago

To be fair, I have seen several Latino academics use “Latinx.”

Like, I wouldn’t use it when talking to my Latino neighbors or students because I know that’s not the language they use. But if I’m talking to someone who prefers the term, I’ll match them 🤷‍♀️

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u/Electronic-Can-130 3h ago

It started as a term by a Hispanic academic. The "white intellectuals" is just a way to discredit it by bad faith actors. It's still true a lot of Latin Americans hate the term. But it's not some white lib thing.

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u/FrostingHour8351 12h ago

It was created by queer Spanish speakers just an fyi

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u/AmyXBlue 10h ago

A lot of folks ignore or forget this, but that term was a code switch online in the queer Spanish speaking community to be an inclusive or accepting space or person. Just the term got taken from that community and applied broadly. And the same with all the X one's added on.

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u/Funkycoldmedici 11h ago

The only people I’ve ever heard use it were two gay Puerto Rican podcasters. I don’t know where everyone is finding it.

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u/FrostingHour8351 8h ago

It was created by a queer magazine/ news paper i dont remember the name but it was pretty easy to find

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u/newyne 6h ago

It's mostly used in academia. Like when I did my MA, that was the word you were supposed to use. That kind of thing is common there; people are aware of their own privilege and sensitive to that fact, and as such fixate on any and all implications a word might carry. A lot of people think it's overkill, but you still don't want to use the wrong word. Editors will correct you, too, if you're trying to get published. 

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u/JosebaZilarte 4h ago edited 4h ago

It might be true, but it is a linguistic abomination to anyone who speaks Spanish. It is like... instead of using the "they" pronoun to refer to a person of unknown gender, someone invented the "xhe" pronoun. Not a bad idea in theory, but that sounds all kinds of wrong in practice. No matter who creates/uses it.

Edit: Apparently the "xhe" pronoun already exists, but few people actually use it.

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u/FrostingHour8351 3h ago

Not disagreeing just pushing back on the "forced on Spanish speakers by white people" narrative. It was developed and popularized by queer Spanish speakers

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u/Jay-El 11h ago

It was my understanding that the term "latinx" was originally just typed and not spoken. Because "x" is a placeholder for a letter, and it's quicker to type "latinx" than "latinos and latinas" or whatever.

It wasn't until years after I first read the term that I heard people speak it aloud in earnest and it has always confused me how it made the jump

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u/CoffeeWanderer 10h ago

Yeah, but we have used latin@s for that for a good while, it works better as a shorthand imo

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u/Betelgeuse3fold 13h ago

Omg I've actually seen white liberals directly to try to correct the language of Latino guys.

I sometimes wonder if the average white western progressive is even capable of embarrassment

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u/angry_jets_fan 12h ago

I’m a Latino who fell victim of a progressive white person trying to “correct” my language when I didn’t use Latinx. She then told me I was part of the problem by refused to use that word

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u/Infamous-Warthog8555 12h ago

Had a conversation with a Latina PhD student who used Latinx. She said it was really only appropriate in an academic context, which I thought was an interesting viewpoint.

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u/trilobyte-dev 12h ago

That seems to be a growing consensus. I’ve heard a lot of academics talking about how the terms that are being associated with the “woke” culture over the past few years were always meant to be used in an academic context and not meant for general use. Like “Latinx” maybe a useful shorthand if you’re studying a broad group of cultures but not something you would use to refer to an individual in normal conversation. Which seems entirely reasonable.

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u/doubleshotinthedark 10h ago

academic terminology that has escaped containment and gets used on social media, especially by people who don't understand it well or at all, has created so many problems

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u/juliankennedy23 11h ago

But they already have the word Latin American why not just use that?

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u/trilobyte-dev 11h ago

As a hypothetical, it could be because they are studying diaspora of individuals where geography is a secondary concern.

Academia comes up with new terms to aid in research all the time. I think the more important part is that those terms aren’t meant to be used colloquially.

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u/Napalmeon 12h ago

This is exactly why white liberals are oftentimes the problem they think that they are against. They believe it is their sole responsibility to correct the evils of white supremacy and white colonialization to the point where they're just forcing their own so-called "progressive" opinions onto other communities and then acting like they should be grateful for their enlightenment.

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u/Sure_Discussion3106 12h ago

It's the modern version of the "white man's burden". The way they see the world is ultimately not all that different from the old world colonizers they preach against, because to me, they infantilize entire groups of people and place themselves at the head of the table. They must be the ones to save everyone because deep down, they think those people need saving.

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u/Radical_Hummingbird 12h ago edited 12h ago

At my work an audibly liberal white woman was telling a group of Hispanic men that the tamales they were eating for lunch were pitiful and she knew where to get better authentic tamales. It was comically tone-deaf

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u/Pandapeep 12h ago

I mean, Hispanic people can make shitty tamales.

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u/Toum_Rater 12h ago

cringe, but that has nothing to do with liberalism

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u/sonofsteffordson 12h ago

“Audibly liberal white woman” is such a perfect archetype. 10/10

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u/Remmock 7h ago

How do you hear how liberal they are?

Why, by using the most sensitive organ of all: the conservative sensibility organ!

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u/transmogrify 8h ago

My coworkers are a bunch of the wokest white western progressives you'll ever meet, and I'm in the Latino community every day. Nobody has ever made an issue of this, sometimes people say Latinx and other times people say Latino or Latina. This has never created drama. People say whatever they say, and everyone understands what is meant. Yet reddit tells me every day that it's so dreadfully embarrassing it's caused people to literally drop dead from secondhand cringe.

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u/aguamxja 6h ago

its mostly white bigots larping as latin american people lol

I'll never forget that one white politician on twitter who forgot to swap to his alt tweet on his main "as a gay black man....."

they love getting their points validated, they'll go as far as lying to themselves just to feel better about themselves for getting mad at people using words they don't like.

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u/transmogrify 6h ago

I believe that. I also believe that the reddit community is unable to resist the contrarian urge to know more than someone else.

Trying is so cringe bro. Inclusivity is actually worse than exclusivity, I am very smart.

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u/kulupu_kasi_seli 12h ago

They also think they know more about transness than trans people like me. Everything they do is so goddamn performative.

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u/Betelgeuse3fold 12h ago

I've known 4 trans people in recent years (which feels like a large number, for how few people I actually interact with, and such a small demographic) and not 1 has fit into the boxes that progressive activists have built.

Turns out they are fully rounded people, who understand they have an atypical identity and that others will have feelings about it.

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u/eganba 12h ago

Yeah but this is something the super polarized world had created. Everyone contains multitudes. With the new world we have seen a complete collapse in the ability of people to think critically. And with that goes any nuance and ability to discuss hard topics in a way that can actually lead to change.

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u/Avid_Reader87 12h ago

My wife is Mayan, and corrects people all the time who call her Latina.

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u/Betelgeuse3fold 11h ago

It must be annoying to be her. I don't even correct people when they call me the wrong name

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u/confusedtransfag 12h ago

they are the most righteous and indignant people of all human history. I dare you to name another group than even comes close.

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u/7and2make10 9h ago

There are some misconceptions about that term while it's true that most Latino(a)s don't like the term it was created by queer/feminist Latinx people who did not want gender attached to their selfs for some reason or another

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u/clytusmarginicollis 12h ago

Actual nonbinary Hispanics usually prefer the term Latine (pronounced lah-TEEN-ay)

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u/Weird-Girl-Thing 12h ago

Why not just say Latin or Latin American

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u/5Hjsdnujhdfu8nubi 12h ago

Why not just say Latino since that's already the neutral term?

No need to come up with something that has to sound neutral to satisfy English-speakers.

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u/eggosh 10h ago

That's not entirely true. Latinx is a US thing, but Latine was invented by queer hispanic people in Latin America and is generally preferred by that community.

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u/MitchellMagicfire 12h ago

I am a Latino without a lick of knowing Spanish, but even I cringe at the idea of “Latinx.”

It feels like they’re colonizing an already colonial language

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u/0kafaraqgatri0 12h ago

It also seems like it is a thing that started in Brazilian academia and spread from there.

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u/Chemical-Struggle-13 11h ago

A proper term that is specifically gender neutral and not just an example of male defaultism would be great but trying to force one that doesn't flow with the language doesn't make sense.

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u/Sweaty-Top5988 11h ago

It turns out virtually all Hispanic people

Yeah but the term wasnt intented for "virtually all Hispanic people" It was a tern for non binary people that didnt like to use either Latino or Latina. And its not exactly surprising that a group of people that are famously conservative christians wouldnt appreciate something progressive.

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u/warukeru 11h ago

Thing is, that words already exists in Spanish and is "Latine"

Latinx is just an Anglosphere thing that sounds awful for anyone who knows how Spanish works.

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u/aguamxja 11h ago

thats not true, it varies wildly from person to person. most old people don't like it but it's extremely popular to use x or E for gender neutral expressions on queer or lgbt circles.

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u/Marxesque 11h ago

The whole "latinx" thing is overblown. A lot of queer people in Mexico (I suppose elsewhere to) do use an -x or -e ending as a gender neutral marker. Other people do mock it, but in languages that have grammatical gender, it's totally logical that neutral versions are appearing.

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u/Prestigious-Swan6161 10h ago

It's overblown because people want to make fun of queer nonwhite people without being called out for it

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u/Marxesque 10h ago

Yeah, and bc they want to portray ppl from Latin America as overly conservative and bigoted.

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u/internet_blue_gas 12h ago

Person 1: Hm the term Latino is masculine and Latina is feminine, it is common in Latin languages that the o suffix is masculine and the A suffix is feminine, should we use E, I or U for our gender independent term?

Person 2 (being possessed by the time traveling spirit of Elon Musk): X

P1: what?

P2: put the letter X at the end! Latinx!!!

P1: but X is a extremely rare letter in Latin languages and after the letter n it would extremely hard to pronounce in Latin languages

P2: make it Latinx or you’re racist, homophobic and Latin-phobic

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u/Distinct_Work1779 9h ago

Are you speaking on behalf of virtually all Hispanic people? Lol

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u/PenguinBoi27 12h ago

Adding (real life) is so funny to me and i dont know why

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u/slomo525 10h ago

Apparently it's supposed to be pronounced "latiné" and not "latinks" which is how I always pronounced it. If you can't even get the proper pronunciation on first glance, your word is probably doomed.

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u/Bagelt389 9h ago

I don't even understand where "latinx" came from 😭

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u/-PepeArown- 12h ago

I still pronounce the term as “luh tinx” whenever I read it just to be facetious

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u/OiledUpThug 11h ago

I swap between latinks and latin-equis

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u/Aegi 10h ago

White people can't be native spanish speakers?

Isn't this you being racist/wrong now?

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u/eganba 12h ago

I always found it hilarious as a term because the "x" in spanish is pronounced 'eh-kees' so you are saying latinehkees.

It's such a stupid term that no one likes. Just let it die please.

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u/SoulsEquivalent 12h ago

....but it was created by LGBTQ Latino folks & largely used by them...online, mainly nonbinary types.

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u/Maxwell_Bloodfencer 12h ago

In a similiar vein, not all dark-skinned Americans like the term "African American". There are plenty of cultures with similarly dark skin like people from the Caribbean or Tahiti whose ancestors probably never set foot on Africa (within remembered history).
Of course, African American was a reaction to people deeming "Black American" as being offensive, because they wanted to get away from the whole thing where people get generalized by their skin colour. Only to end up generalizing people by their skin colour.

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u/Cultural_Manner_2198 9h ago

Well, I'm glad that white people gave me a word that will instantly piss off my parents

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u/Zoomwafflez 12h ago

Similar vein, Indian vs native American. Turns out there's a large number of tribes that don't find Indian offensive and actually prefer it as it separates them from other native groups like the Inuit or native south Americans.

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u/84theone 10h ago

My understanding of that situation is that a lot of the actual treaties with the government and government entities refer to them as Indian rather than Native American, like the BIA.

So the tribes will stick with Indian due to their reasonable suspicion of the federal government, that if they stop identifying as “Indian” the Feds will no longer honor treaties with them.

That said, every indigenous person I’ve interacted with preferred to be referred to as their tribe rather than native America or Indian, provided you know what tribe they are from. So if you’re talking to Seneca you call them Seneca, Apache are called Apache, and so on.

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u/BoiFrosty 12h ago

Not to mention androgynous language doesn't really translate well into Spanish and Portuguese. If your language has genders for chairs then you probably have gendered language for men and women.

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u/Aggravating-Week481 11h ago

Had the same problem with "Filipinx". The term is already gender neutral, what more do they want?? Thats like trying to make the term 'person' gender neutral

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u/Gmknewday1 10h ago

And yet some people still will bend over backwards for why pulling a Elon Musk and slamming a X on the end of something is a good thing

There's better terms for Hispanic they/thems 

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u/Orion_starborn 10h ago

What would be the correct term? I've heard "latine" is supposed to be a better term to refer to the people but I don't know for sure

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u/Ramekink 10h ago

Its also cos the mere concept of Latin America is already reduccionist enough. 

Like, a white German-Brazilian or German-Argentinian might be culturally closer to their European roots in pretty much every single way than to their Afro Brazilians or Indigenous Argentinians compatriots. 

Latin America as a concept is as representative of a group of people as it is to say that "All Asian people are the same". Just willfully ignorant and pretty fucking racist in a way

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u/4anyreason 9h ago

Is latine offensive?

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u/Throwawayman69420666 8h ago

I always assumed Non Binary Latin Americans would just be called Latin Americans or I've heard them accept "Latino" as a gender neutral term in English. Probably wrong about that, I'm not Latino, feel free to correct me. But I don't want to use Latinx. It's like someone calling me "African American" because they think I'd being offended by them calling me Black. I don't know if that's still a thing today. But apparently it was in the 90s.

Honestly, white allies have a horrible track record of NOT listening to minorities. probably why Latinos are constantly at war with Warner over Speedy Gonzales.

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u/interwebz_2021 7h ago

Came here to say exactly this. Like: "Thanks for attempting to strip gender from a language which has gender as a literal core concept, I guess?"

Incredibly tone-deaf, overbearing, and wrong-headed. And I'm a progressive myself!

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u/huitzil9 6h ago

As a Latine person: it's a weird term. Because the X is and has been used internally for a long time to gender-neutral terms. For example a lot of anarchists use the term "prisionerxs políticos" to refer to political prisoners since "prisoner" is a gendered term. It is also used by a lot of queer people.

It was also invented by a Puerto Rican woman, so like it is "native". But it's not very useful when speaking because the X is not a pronouncable word. So I prefer Latine, with an e.

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u/ChiefsHat 6h ago

The more I learn about American race relations the stupider I feel.

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u/platinum_jimjam 6h ago

I’ll never forget watching Latina leftist sociology majors create this term in the 2010s and then try to pretend white people created it a decade later due to it’s unpopularity

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u/Material_Dot2444 4h ago

For white people we have the Balkans.

" This should be one country and it's called Serbia."

People who live there: "This is not the same place and in fact I will kill some of these people if you put me in a room with them."

In fairness, a lot of that was weird internal conflicts, not totally outside forces of imposing on them.

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u/CJCroen1393 2h ago

I remember a thread discussing this example and an actual Hispanic person outright said "I'd rather be called a slur than 'Latinx'."

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u/Helem5XG 2h ago

The word can't even be pronounced by Mexican Spanish speakers in the first place.

X pronunciation is related to the vowel put after the letter.

In Mexico is pronounced like J, in Xilófono is S. The letter alone is Equis.

So the word is not only stupid, is a monolith on how Americans are so self centered to try to impose their word pronunciation in other languages that share nothing

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u/Comuniity 22m ago

-e (like latine) makes alot more sense since its actually pronounceable and its what actual LGBTQ+ spanish speakers use for gender neutral terms

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