So I asked my Spanish speaking non-binary partner. They informed me it's "muxe" in Oaxaca but Catholics pretend that the word doesn't exist.
this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2024
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Stuff that I've seen from people addressing this:
- using -@, -e or -x instead of either.
- picking either randomly, and acknowledging "language limits". (laypeople way to say "grammatical gender does not necessarily coincide with social gender")
- picking both and using them randomly
- triggering gender agreement with some additional word, e.g. "la persona no binaria" will always use -a since it agrees with "persona" (person)
- "the dance" aka rephrasing
The -@ and -x things don't work well when spoken.
Spaniard here, you pretty much nailed it. -x makes no sense as it breaks like every rule about the Spanish language so I've never heard it outside of Americans trying to be correct. -@ works, but we pronounce @ as [aˈro.βa] so most would just pronounce it like a normal -a instead. -e seems the best to me but I don't think I've ever seen that one before.
Another thing is that most Hispanics don't think of gender in the same way that Anglos would, as its more ingrained in our language. Of course he have non-binary people here, but its just not as prevalent of an issue. At least that's my experience in Spain
-e is common in LatAm. I've never seen the -@ used. X just pisses me off because it only "works" in English, but sounds idiotic as well.
i'm not a spanish speaker but christ -e just seems so obviously the best choice, it looks normal and seems to fit as well into the language as you can expect a new not 100% organic thing to do.
It sounds well in Portuguese too. Perhaps even more - because unlike in Spanish people tend to shorten and reduce vowels in non-stressed positions, so depending on the dialect and speed you don't even notice that -e instead of -a or -o.
Yeah it just makes sense. Saying something like amigxs instead of amigos completely butchers the pronunciation. It would be pronounced something like ameeg-ek-eese but also the accentuated syllable would move from the i to the a. At least I think so, having that many consonants together is literally impossible in Spanish lol
I wonder whether linguists and others will gradually adopt calling them noun classes instead of genders.
I have a harder time believing we'd adopt a new term to supplant "gender" for human social roles, but stranger things have happened.
I wonder whether linguists and others will gradually adopt calling them noun classes instead of genders.
I hope so. It would also help when explaining the grammar of a few languages to laypeople. Such as the Bantu ones - people treat their noun classes as if they were something completely alien, even when they speak a language with M/F noun classes.
Especially in Spanish where "verb classes" already exist and have distinct, if subtle, rules (-ar, -er and -ir)
Don't they call it "conjugations" in Spanish too?
Note however that they work in a really different way, more like noun declensions than like noun classes=gender. For example, you don't trigger agreement; even if you were to replace an -ar verb with an -er or -ir verb, the rest of the sentence stays the same.
Even though I don't understand Spanish, the christ-e just seems like the greatest hellstar option; it sounds natural and blends in with the language as well as you could hope from a new, non-natural entity.
I believe they use "no binarie" if anyone's interested.
We do
That’s what the nonbinary Spanish speakers I know use in Latin American Spanish as well.
Actually the problem is not that hard to solve unless you are trying to be deliberately obnoxious:
You say "no binario\a" depending to the noun it defines. It's correct to say no binaria because it refers to a person (in spanish persona, female noun).
But it's also ok to say no binario if you refer to a human being (ser humano in spanish, this one male noun).
No binarix?