What does 'Latinx' mean and should it be used?

To be, or not to be Latinx? The term, which has slowly increased in popularity, has been championed as a gender-neutral, inclusive identifier, but U.S. Hispanics are split over whether to embrace the word as a part of their identity.

A recent Pew Research Center study found that only 3 percent of the U.S. Hispanics use “Latinx” (pronounced La-teen-ex), even though 1 in 4 have heard of the term. It’s most commonly used by young people, especially young women. The term has also been used by some news outlets, movies and television, and by former presidential candidates Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Housing Secretary Julian Castro.

For most of the 20th century, people used “Hispanic,” which was later rejected in favor of “Latino.” The term "Latinx" entered the world in early aughts and was created by queer activists seeking a gender-neutral way to refer to people in the Spanish language. The word started to become more widely known when universities introduced it on campuses in the mid-2010s. While Merriam Webster adopted the term in 2018, it was rejected by Real Academia Espanola, which preserves the Spanish language.