if Latinx isn't preferred by most, it won't take hold. So be it.

... this make me think Latinx was intended to replace Latino/Latina? I think it might be better to accept all three Latino, Latina, and Latinx. It's interesting to have Spanish go gender neutral... I know from studying the romantic languages that everything has a "gender." A book is "Male" and a house is "Female" for example... la, le, los, les...

Male, female and neutral. Der, die, das, in nomimative... Jobs and professions are indicated with the suffix "in" for females. Professor, Professorin. Chef, Chefin. Nederland got rid of that a couple of hundred years ago.

And for better or worse, it is "male-dominated" in that any male plural noun (if it has a feminine counter-part) can refer to a mixed masculine/feminine - or when you think about it any gender identification - group. For instance, los estudiantes hispanos de la escuela - the school's Hispanic students - would encompass everyone who identified as Hispanic regardless of gender identity even though the los and the o in hispanos, traditionally are male.

I have a degree in Spanish, and one of the first things I learned in college (especially after seeing a Paraguayan student go off on a guy who called her Mexican) was how someone preferred to be referred to because Latino tends to refer to those from Latin America while Hispanic tends to refer to Americans (United States). Chicano is more of a political identification. Individually, I would always go country first (he's Venezuelan; she's Mexican-American) as heritage is very important. And if talking to both groups, I would be sure to say Hispanos and Latinos. I remember a meeting in college between the Hispanic Student Association and Latin American Student Association, and the HSA president kept saying Hispanic when talking about both groups, and the LASA members became increasingly upset the longer he talked.

If anything, I think this pride in heritage extends to their language. While open to adopting non-Spanish words (like sandwich), the x might be too big of a change, and you're dealing with around two dozen countries to adopt it.

I'm taking Duolingo lessons in Spanish and hoo boy, the gendered thing is truly something

Keeping up with more complex verbs and learning slang phrases. Keep it up. One thing I've learned about Spanish-speakers in general - though I hate to stereotype - is that they're very forgiving as long as you're trying. It's a compliment to them that you're learning their language and culture. I remember a trip to Mexico in college. We had a program in the Spanish department that in the summer, you could pay to take whatever Spanish class you wanted in Mexico (a professor from the department also went to teach). We stayed with host families, and the professor planned a lot of excursions for us (we also had free time). We went to one of the largest markets in Mexico City. I was the most advanced speaker on the trip after the professor (literally taking my last class for a major), and at a t-shirt vendor's stall I specifically asked for a displayed t-shirt with a picture of dancing skeletons on it by one of my favorite Mexican artists by the work's name in my size. It impressed the vendor so much that she had me come into the stall, sit down, and talk with her for a while.

Jarabe en Ultratumba por Jose Guadalupe Posada

I'm around a lot of native Spanish speakers and they are thrilled with my progress

Try Romanian that is an experience!

I remember my grandparents speaking Norwegian when they didn't want us to know what they were saying

Verbs are easy, but there are other hitches. It can be quite fun!

fascinating history and I love the common words: schmooze. schtick, kvetch

Best to ditch the word "gender" for inanimates and even many animates, but it's hard because the terminology is deeply embedded in the literature. The endings just help to show what adjective goes with which noun in most cases; in some cases they also show sex, but there's no point in wondering about how a camisa "shirt" is feminine but vestido "dress" is masculine. (Don't like agreement categories in Romance, learn Interlingua).

It's like sorting out why "scissors" is plural (like men's "underwear" is plural for most speakers) but Czech parek is "two hot dogs". Ask for two parky and you get four sausage things.

I reject gender for new adjectives in English and tolerate it for the long-established "blond/e" and "brunet/te", but oddly even publications and style guides that demand gendered "Latino" forms have ruled against the sex distinction for people with brown or blond hair, from what I've observed. (With at least one wanting "brunet" but "blonde" as the remaining acceptable form--go figure.) But if I'm forced to use gender for a few "correct" words, I insist on using them for words and names borrowed from languages I know. (I mean, if we just say "Latino" is an English borrowing like "French" or "immense", then the problem's vanished.)

Some languages have more complex agreement classes. Most Slavic languages distinguish between male/female/neuter nouns (and adjectives that describe them) but also have an animate/inanimate distinction. (And what's in the set of 'animate' varies between languages). They even have female/male/neuter verbs in the past tense (for those with multiple past tenses, just those descended from the l-participle), and Czech at least even has plural past tense verbs that show agreement class, at least in the standard language. They still have (depending on language) profession endings that show sex, but their use is inconsistent and how the absence of sex-marking shows up in terms of "gender" is really a zoo to sort out (if it's even consistent enough to be sorted out).

Bantu languages have far more complex agreement classes, less focused on "male/female" but other often, depending on the language, a bit more abstract. Japanese and Mandarin also has "classifiers".

These are cognitive categories that are formed very early so it's hard to non-native speakers to master them completely. In this sense, they're like TAM systems (tense-aspect-mood), the bane of anybody learning a Slavic language where the aspectual system is very un-Germanic.

i took it for 2 yrs in hs, and even tho i slept through most of it i passed.
i sorta was able to sense the gender thing. just like i sensed but never learned english grammar rules. just went by what sounded right.

was talking about this w a neighbor. he confirmed my basic rule of thumb- strong hard things r male, soft fuzzy things r female. tho he pointed out a few exceptions, in all of them, i can see how, from their cultural and sometimes romantic outlook, the case could be made. i wish i could remember any, but i would bet a few come to mind for you.

Like he said, there are a lot of exceptions. He may be seeing something that isn't there. Especially since two of the most common words for penis are feminine - la pene, la verga.

Then you have words like la mano, la foto - the hand, the photo. Feminine but ends with o. A lot of words that end with ma are masculine as well. El sistema, el programa. I remember an early Spanish class in college when the professor introduced the phrase - Quiero ir de compras (I want to go shopping). A lot of us asked why it wasn't Quiero ir de comprar. Comprar being the infinitive of buy, which we thought made more sense. "Tradition," he said, smiling. There are rules, but there's always going to be something that doesn't follow it.

Unless I missed something waaaay back in high school, I don't think there's any way to figure out whether a word in English (or one's native language) that you don't know in Spanish will be masculine or feminine once you learn it.

Even worse - not all languages agree on the gender of things. Una manzana, ein Apfel. An apple in Spanish (feminine) and German (masculine).

Pueblo to Alamosa to Dotsera and Conejos in Colorado-- when I attended outreach forums sponsored by the Denver Post, several local Spanish-language papers, 9-news, academicians from CU and state public health and health outreach officials. The term was universally panned as being thrust upon the community and there was a LOT of resentment. For any that want to suggest it was specific to transphobic bias, that did not appear to be the case in the community, but rather an issue of cultural appropriation and insensitivity by East Coast activists who were perceived to know NOTHING about the very diverse Latino community--nor to particularly care. Much like the Native Americans resented having panels not LED (or at least the majority populated by the community) trying to decide what to do about stereotypical or derogatory high school team names and symbols, this is a highly sensitive issue. Whether or not a term or symbol is well-intentioned, the community MUST accept it.

There were a few activists attending the Hispanic forums who tried to "explain" why the term was needed in the wider community. The backlash was swift and angry with those individuals perceived as patronizing as one could (should?) be imagined. I have well-meaning colleagues working in medicine and health outreach who were quite taken aback by the reactions but definitely learned something important.

Academic busy bodies.

from the early 20th century?

Or is it "Anglo" in form?

Too broad a term?

What is it? I'd really like to know.

LatinX is a newly coined nongendered term to accommodate transgender and nonbinary people that was recently coined (outside the Hispanic community) and the subject of great disdain by the Latino/Hispanic population.

I'm merely trying to figure out the confusion in your post and offer an explanation. Please don't jump all over me for merely trying to do so. .

on non-binary people as the rest of the US is?

It feels like Anglo people requiring Hispanic people to call themselves by a new "Anglo" term, and on top of that it's a term that caters to people who can't be bothered with grammatical gender.