I’m not trans. I am Hispanic. But I’m a white Hispanic. And a group never told you anything. People tell you things, and they belong to groups. Within the groups themselves are contradictory beliefs and positions.
Latinidad is particularly vexing. The language of Latin America is a Christian white supremacist patriarchal settler colonists genocidal language. If there were any justice in the world, it would be eradicated and the languages of the dead would be heard from Alaska to what we call Tierra del Fuego.
But, because the Spanish ultimately lost to the English in the grand game of empire, Spanish is a signifier of lower social status. So white European Hispanics who’s families were settlers, like mine were, feel like they are actually the oppressed people, not the oppressors, because the USA discriminates against them. White supremacy and victimhood simultaneously run rampant throughout latinidad. We see it the most in the white Cubans and Venezuelans who want nothing more than for the US to invade their former countries of residence and exact divine vengeance on those who would rather uplift black people and women than maintain the genocidal settler colonial project.
It is not imperialism to tell all of the latinate languages that they have to break the gender binary. It is anti-imperialism. After all, Latin was the language of the Roman empire, so chosen and designed to propagate their ideology.
And a group never told you anything. People tell you things, and they belong to groups.
Doesn’t this philosophy preclude the idea of any sort of united movement? As a highly relevant example here, advocacy groups; it’s in no small part their purpose to tell people things on behalf of their members. Unions, too. Etc.
Stepping back slightly, I don’t particularly disagree with you here nor are you telling me anything I’m not already aware of - but I think it’s important to note that you’re demonstrating my original point rather well. You’re familiar with this topic, and you’re rejecting my position as an outsider on the basis of your own cultural relevance with it makes you much more qualified to discuss it (even though you aren’t trans - which I’ll confess, does make me less inclined to listen to you rather than to trans hispanic people/groups)
Now I could insist that you’re wrong in the pointless particulars, and go off on how ‘white’ is a term whose definition is almost entirely contextually fluid and so it fundamentally lacks any usefulness in judging across cultures, but that would similarly be me imposing my own cultural values on a context where you clearly consider yourself more capable of commenting with authority on the subject than I am. And rightly so! Hence not wanting to do a cultural imperialism by, you know, my doing exactly that. You’re welcome to continue talking about this, I am genuinely interested in your perspective, but do keep in mind that you’re preaching to the choir here. I just haven’t gone on about it because it was never expressly relevant to the topic, and I just… honestly, don’t have the capacity to make this a priority. Other people I trust and who this is relevant towards, like yourself, are more than capable of handling this and I have many other issues of equal importance I’m better positioned to address.
That’s a total fair, reasonable, and thoughtful position. I encourage you to expand that thoughtfulness just an inch more to imperialism/anti-imperialism and don’t assume that fighting for non-binary linguistics is analogous to imperialism. Like you said here, just say you don’t really understand the problem fully and since you’re an outsider you’re following the lead of the people you’ve connected with that have lived experiences. I agree you shouldn’t listen to me and my lived experiences as a cis het white anglophonic man. I will encourage you to study the academics on these topics when you do have the time and energy. We have a lot of work to do to undo the harm of our ancestors and our societies and we should continue having these discussions to ensure we are working through our own processes so we can show up more fully and more effectively to follow the lead of or siblings and allies.
Fighting for it isn’t imperialism, no; interposing myself into the discussion around how it should be done would be, which was what I was getting at. More white (ish) people telling them what they should be doing with their language isn’t what anyone needs right now, especially when the problem is the result of a thousand years of white people doing exactly that. I’ll happily fight for it as best I can, I did use “latinix” specifically as it’s an extremely complicated subject and many people to whom the label would apply prefer alternatives but I’ll keep on doing what I can to support the fight…
I’m not trans. I am Hispanic. But I’m a white Hispanic. And a group never told you anything. People tell you things, and they belong to groups. Within the groups themselves are contradictory beliefs and positions.
Latinidad is particularly vexing. The language of Latin America is a Christian white supremacist patriarchal settler colonists genocidal language. If there were any justice in the world, it would be eradicated and the languages of the dead would be heard from Alaska to what we call Tierra del Fuego.
But, because the Spanish ultimately lost to the English in the grand game of empire, Spanish is a signifier of lower social status. So white European Hispanics who’s families were settlers, like mine were, feel like they are actually the oppressed people, not the oppressors, because the USA discriminates against them. White supremacy and victimhood simultaneously run rampant throughout latinidad. We see it the most in the white Cubans and Venezuelans who want nothing more than for the US to invade their former countries of residence and exact divine vengeance on those who would rather uplift black people and women than maintain the genocidal settler colonial project.
It is not imperialism to tell all of the latinate languages that they have to break the gender binary. It is anti-imperialism. After all, Latin was the language of the Roman empire, so chosen and designed to propagate their ideology.
Doesn’t this philosophy preclude the idea of any sort of united movement? As a highly relevant example here, advocacy groups; it’s in no small part their purpose to tell people things on behalf of their members. Unions, too. Etc.
Stepping back slightly, I don’t particularly disagree with you here nor are you telling me anything I’m not already aware of - but I think it’s important to note that you’re demonstrating my original point rather well. You’re familiar with this topic, and you’re rejecting my position as an outsider on the basis of your own cultural relevance with it makes you much more qualified to discuss it (even though you aren’t trans - which I’ll confess, does make me less inclined to listen to you rather than to trans hispanic people/groups)
Now I could insist that you’re wrong in the pointless particulars, and go off on how ‘white’ is a term whose definition is almost entirely contextually fluid and so it fundamentally lacks any usefulness in judging across cultures, but that would similarly be me imposing my own cultural values on a context where you clearly consider yourself more capable of commenting with authority on the subject than I am. And rightly so! Hence not wanting to do a cultural imperialism by, you know, my doing exactly that. You’re welcome to continue talking about this, I am genuinely interested in your perspective, but do keep in mind that you’re preaching to the choir here. I just haven’t gone on about it because it was never expressly relevant to the topic, and I just… honestly, don’t have the capacity to make this a priority. Other people I trust and who this is relevant towards, like yourself, are more than capable of handling this and I have many other issues of equal importance I’m better positioned to address.
That’s a total fair, reasonable, and thoughtful position. I encourage you to expand that thoughtfulness just an inch more to imperialism/anti-imperialism and don’t assume that fighting for non-binary linguistics is analogous to imperialism. Like you said here, just say you don’t really understand the problem fully and since you’re an outsider you’re following the lead of the people you’ve connected with that have lived experiences. I agree you shouldn’t listen to me and my lived experiences as a cis het white anglophonic man. I will encourage you to study the academics on these topics when you do have the time and energy. We have a lot of work to do to undo the harm of our ancestors and our societies and we should continue having these discussions to ensure we are working through our own processes so we can show up more fully and more effectively to follow the lead of or siblings and allies.
Fighting for it isn’t imperialism, no; interposing myself into the discussion around how it should be done would be, which was what I was getting at. More white (ish) people telling them what they should be doing with their language isn’t what anyone needs right now, especially when the problem is the result of a thousand years of white people doing exactly that. I’ll happily fight for it as best I can, I did use “latinix” specifically as it’s an extremely complicated subject and many people to whom the label would apply prefer alternatives but I’ll keep on doing what I can to support the fight…