by Tuting Hernandez
The x in Filipinx is rooted in the 1970s English neologism Mx., an alternative to Mr. and Ms. for people who do not identify with neither Mr. nor Ms. By analogy, this morphological process was extended to Latinx and folx and more recently to Filipinx. Analogy (or what some might derisively call gaya-gaya o nakiki-uso) is actually a very productive linguistic process. Some of the regularities in languages are because of analogy.
The label is not meant to replace existing identities. It was coined as an alternative to Filipino/Filipina for those who do not identify with this binary. It also carries with it the histories, relations, and alliances of those who choose to own and identify with this label — histories that are unique and have long diverged from the histories of other Filipinos in the Philippines and in diaspora; relations that are their own, forged in communities that are different from ours; and alliances borne out of the political need for visibility in a struggle that might be far from our everyday life.
And this cannot be denied. Who are we really to deny the identity (and with it the label) of a group who is trying to assert itself amidst the threat of erasure?