Author: Eden Estabrook
We’ve all seen it.
The latest linguistic trend in a genderless American society involves tossing an “X” at the end of any word that has the audacity of attributing a gender to neutralize it and appease the gender police.
It’s no longer Mr. or Mrs. It’s Mx.
Latina or Latino? Nah, it’s Latinx.
The X has become the holy grail of politically correct, inclusive language. No person is left out or disrespected if the X can help it.
But it’s also ironic.
A symbol of inclusivity, the use of X in modern society also signifies the slow erasure of gendered culture. Consider the Hispanic/Latin American population, which makes up 18.7% of the US population as of the 2020 census, according to census.gov. Considering their parts of speech are all gendered, it’s safe to say their whole language is built around the masculine and feminine gender and the neutralization of such removes a critical part of their culture.
Yet, the use of X is supposed to make it more inclusive? While subtly digging at the roots native language of those they’re trying to include?
Before you say Spanish is the odd ball out, it isn’t the only gendered language.
French, German, Italian, Portuguese, etc, all use at least gendered nouns, pronouns, and articles (“the” and “a/an” for those who haven’t studied their parts of speech in a while).
In fact, old English also leveraged gendered nouns, adjectives, and pronouns, in addition to declension – rendering it unreadable or unspeakable to most native speakers of modern English.
As such, it’s arguable that the erasure of gender in linguistics via the use of X is not only exclusive of most cultures and its roots, but also contradictory to nearly every Germanic language.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent those of Resident Skeptics.
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