When speaking Spanish, you can talk about “latinos” and, e.g., “la gente latina”, “la población latina” and it is the same word, despite the morphological differences (putting aside for the moment questions of whether it is cool to refer to lump together peruanos, mexicanos, etc. as “latinos”). This nuance may be lost on English speakers, who, understandably, then seek a single gender-neutral word, which is not always going to be so easy in English any more than it would be in Spanish.
Personally, I think it’s silly, but as I’m not Latina, it’s not really impacting me all that much. I guess if someone wants to use it, fine, whatever, but a big movement to make it the official term for good, (which I haven’t seen) would be stupid and doomed to failure.
But, at least it’s not “folx”. For the life of me, I cannot understand the point of that, unless it’s just slang like “bux” or “flix”.
When has this ever actually happened on this board? The opinions here seem to run the gamut from “It’s the dumbest thing ever,” or, “it’s dumb, but no big deal if people want to use it for themselves.” Where have you ever seen anyone on this board demand that someone use “Latino”?
Is “cis” sort of an opposite situation?
I’m not sure who coined the term but my understanding is that the context was transgender issues. I’m not aware of a lot of “cis” people eager to use that term. I do not have the impression that it is a desired descriptor by “cis” people.
As said above, I don’t think that is this board culture at all, unless you are deliberately trying to misread it. Most of the posts in this thread seem to come down to describing how the word is used, in what contexts/venues it seems to be used, and how, at least at the moment, the target groups that the term is supposed to cover don’t seem to have strongly adopted the term for themselves. That apprears to be a textbook descriptivist approach. My own post says I don’t see this term catching on, but I’ll use be curious to watch it and see how it develops. If that’s not descriptivism, I don’t know what is. Out of common politeness, I will use the term if asked, just like I’m not going to call someone “Bob” when they ask me to use “Robert” instead. Nor do I insist others use the term “Latinx,” nor do I see others in this thread saying one must.
I was watching a show (originally aired on ABC, I think) about the Spielberg West Side Story where the white people used “Latinx” (which was pronounced “Latinex”, which to me sounds like the name of a 1940s brand of leather furniture polish). The actual Puerto Ricans - not so much (DeBose described herself as a “Latina”).
I’ll go with whatever people prefer, but I’m not seeing a strong move to “Latinx” at the moment among the people to whom the term would apply.
But what if you are in a group of non-Latins, and discussing something related to Latins? You use the word Latino, and some non-Latin corrects you.
Whoops mis-read. I use whatever term is preferred by the group I’m conversing with. No skin off my back.
Cite, please.
We’ve seen this handful of “academics” (or elites or activists) mentioned several times in this thread. Who are these nefarious people ruining the Spanish language?
So if you happen to find yourself in a group of racist bigots? 
Then I won’t use the word that is commonly acknowledged as racist or bigoted.
Aww - you might hurt someone’s feelings!
Hasn’t that already been done with the term: Latine, as discussed above in this thread?
I would be happy to politely give them a brief explanation of why I choose not to use the word. And at that point I would expect them to just accept that I use Latino. It’s not like I jump in to correct people for using Latinx. Not that I’ve heard anyone say Latinx in conversation.
Are you suggesting the term arose organically from native Spanish use? Because I think everyone pretty much agrees that didn’t happen. That means someone contrived it.
Nobody knows exactly who was the “patient zero” of this particular epidemic, but Wikipedia suggests that its earliest appearances all come from academic authors, institutions, and listservs: origins of Latinx
I’m not suggesting anything, because I don’t know where it originated, which is why I asked for a cite. All I’ve seen in this thread to date is unfounded assertions, which may or may not be true. So thanks for the cite, I will check it out right now!
Is the implication that Latinos and Latinas in academia aren’t real enough Latinos and Latinas? Or were they tricked into it?
The implication, as I said, is that it’s an academic contrivance.
How about Latínoa, pronounced La-TEEN-wa ?
(pronunciation analogous to quinoa?)
Why anything? Spanish already works as it is.
If we are collectively decided that this problem must be solved, that we’re too good to use the same words used by the people we’re describing, how about simply “Latin?” i.e. “I am Latin” or “the Latin people”.
There is precedent for it. It doesn’t conflict with any other usage of “Latin people”. There is the cultural hint of “Latin America” which nobody seems to confuse with the former Roman empire. And there’s no real chance somebody will misunderstand it as “I am the Latin language itself.”