#filipinx

Local Filipinos once again fighting against the international Filipino community for pushing the “Filipinx” term as a gender-neutral alternative even though “Filipino” is already considered gender-neutral. This has been happening every few months for several years now, and I think it’s time I give my two cents.

First of all, it is true that “Filipino” is perceived as a gender-neutral term here in the Philippines. So, why all the fuss over it?

Well, one must also acknowledge that the term itself is not native to the country. The country’s name (las Islas Filipinas, ‘the Philippine Islands’) was coined by the Spaniards in honor of King Philip II of Spain. And the term Filipino/Philippino back then was used to refer not just to the native indio community, but also to the local Spaniard community. It can be said, then, that the word “Filipino” adopted the sensibilities of the Spanish language. And Spanish is a very gendered language: nouns ending with -o are considered masculine, while those ending with -a are feminine.

Although Spanish is no longer spoken today in the Philippines, its gendered rules influence the native languages of the country in subtle ways. For example, the native Tagalog word “ginoo” was used to refer to both men and women in pre-colonial times, but because of Spanish influence, the female version “ginang” was made. So, now, “ginoo” only refers to a man. Philippine languages also retain several Spanish words in their vocabulary, such as amigo and amiga to refer to a male and female friend, respectively. So to say, there is a degree of gendered-ness that is undeniably now a part of our language/s.

But does this apply to “Filipino”?

Here in the Philippines, you can often find ads marketed towards women using the term “Filipina” to make their products more appealing. e.g. “For the Filipina beauty” and “For the modern Filipina” etc. etc.

But that’s just in capitalist language. In everyday use, nobody thinks of only men when the term “Filipino” is used. No woman growing up here in the Philippines would also just refer to themselves as a “Filipina” in casual conversation. In official government documents, one’s citizenship would be listed as “Filipino” regardless of what gender you identify with. Nobody explicitly identifies as “Filipina.” It’s unnecessary.

“Filipino” may have had Spanish roots, but our people have already reclaimed the term for ourselves and used it to adapt to our sensibilities. Spain may have colonized us then, but now we’re “colonizing” them back by taking what they gave us and making it our own. By insisting that it’s still Spanish in nature and therefore masculine, it’s like saying that we’ve never really broken free from our colonial past. And I think that’s extremely disrespectful to the history of our language.

The people pushing the “Filipinx” term think they are being more inclusive by removing the -o suffix. I disagree. What they’re doing is akin more to enforcing a new set of foreign rules onto our language. They are subjecting the term “Filipino,” which has already been localized through years of painful history, to a second form of colonization—an Americanization with the addition of the -x.

The letter X is not even naturally part of the Tagalog alphabet. No native word is spelled with an X. It was only later added to the Filipino alphabet in consideration of foreign terms that have it:

“Filipinx,” therefore, sounds and looks unnatural to the native Filipino, thereby alienating them from their own identity. It is extremely disrespectful and shows a lack of understanding on how Philippine languages work.

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