Latinx

Latinx is a gender neutral term often used in lieu of Latino or Latina (referencing Latin American cultural or racial identity). The -x replaces the standard o/a ending in Spanish and Portuguese forming nouns of the masculine and feminine genders, respectively. The term is a political neologism, reportedly first used online in 2004. The term has gained popularity in social media, yet, is mostly used by community activists and in higher education settings by students, faculty, staff, and some administrators who seek to advocate for individuals living on the borderlines of gender identity. In their work, Salinas and Lozano (2017) stated that the term is influenced by Mexican indigenous communities of people.

According to Google Trends, interest in the term peaked in 2016, when it began to be actively advocated for in certain online media channels. It has gained traction among advocacy groups combining racial and gender identity politics.

An alternative term is Latin@ where the @ symbol is taken to represent a combination of a and o in a single character. This variant is somewhat older, in use since the 1990s. Yet another, more recent, variant is Latine, where the vowel e is taken as a "neutral" alternative to either a or o.

However, it has not been officially accepted as linguistically correct. Some refuse to use the term as "Latinx doesn't roll of the tongue in the Spanish language."

The term appears in print, also in 2016, in the context of identity politics.

At Princeton University, the "Princeton University Latinx Perspective Organization" was founded in 2016 to “unify Princeton’s diverse Latinx community." Student run organizations that utilize Latinx in their title also exist at other institutions, including Oberlin College and Conservatory, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Iowa State University, highlighting the widespread usage of the term at the undergraduate level.

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