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Just because he had a badass car didn’t mean that he was some rich, stuck up jerk. No–the minute that he saw you coming out of your office building, his face lit up. He hurriedly made his way to the other side of the car to bundle you up in a huge hug and take your work bag.
“Let’s get you out of these heels and stuffy clothes, hm? How does a spa day sound?”
Suho
He usually stayed after school later than you to finish working on various student council projects, but on the rare days that he was able to leave campus early, he always made sure to come back for you. Opening the door to the passenger seat, he shot you that gentlemanly smile, hand placed upon the small of your back.
“Time for rest, my princess.”
Lay
He drummed his fingers against the wheel waiting for you, and was shocked when he heard the door open. You plopped yourself onto the other side of the car. His look of surprise made you laugh, pecking him on the lips because how in the world could you resist?
“How did you get in here?”
“Yixing, you left the door unlocked again.”
Baekhyun
Apparently Baekhyun thought it would be funny to see if he could hide in the backseat without you noticing. Just when he thought that he got you good, hearing you sit down in the car and take out your phone, he felt his own cell begin to vibrate behind him. The unmistakable sound of his ringtone blasted throughout the car.
“ChogiWA–”
*sigh*
“I love you, Byun Baekhyun.”
Chen
Not only did your bae come pick you up from work, he also brought food as well. The smell of your trademark Starbucks drink and the promising scents of pizza for dinner made you giddy with happiness. He kissed you quickly on the forehead; reached over and buckled you in.
“Come on baby, let’s go home and have dinner.”
Chanyeol
Your classmates had this fantastic habit of shrieking with excitement every time Chanyeol’s truck pulled up to the front of the school. Rolling down the window, he waved, gesturing for you to hop in. Cap on his head, sunglasses over his eyes, that huge smile–what was there not to love?
“Go and get some, girl! Woop!”
“Those are your friends, right?”
“Yeah, they are.”
*waves*
“OHMYGOD DID HE JUST WAVE AT US–”
D.O
“Punctual” was the most perfect word to describe Kyungsoo. Because every day, no matter what sort of things had occurred, Kyungsoo never failed to be at your work building waiting for you. His signature heart shaped smile greeted you as you sat down in the car.
“How was your day, honey?”
Kai
The two of you had been sitting in the school parking lot for a good half hour by now. He flipped through various magazines, and you searched the random trash that he had stashed around his car, both of you looking only for one thing.
“Found it!”
“You got it? The coupon?”
“Yup! ‘Buy one get one half off when you order fried chicken–”
*engine starts*
Sehun
He was that boyfriend. And you were that girlfriend. So what if people stared at you whenever you got to and left school? None of those people mattered–the only person that did was Oh Sehun, revving up his bike and tossing you your helmet so that later, he could come over to your place and make out study while your mom was downstairs cooking dinner.
“Gosh, babydoll. You’re so sexy.”
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just like a casual psa: as a filipino born and raised in the philippines, nothing pisses me off more than my ethnicity being collectively called “filipinx” like. we are not latinxs whose language is gendered or whose language history has led to the wide acceptance of the use of “latinxs”. filipino is a gender neutral language. we don’t use “she” or “he” for pronouns, we simply use “siya”. we don’t use the words “wife” or “husband”, we simply use “asawa”. FILIPINO IS A GENDER NEUTRAL LANGUAGE. stop applying western standards to make up some new collective term for filipinos. our identity as a people is fucked enough as it is with colonial mentality. nobody from the philippines actually uses “filipinx” in reference to themselves. using “-x” as a suffix in an attempt to be gender neutral while referring to my ethnicity as a whole does more harm than good bc it makes it seem like my own language is not enough when it, in fact, is. why make up a new term under the guise of gender neutrality when the language itself is already gender neutral to begin with? it doesn’t make sense.
if you wanna identify as “filipinx” bc of diasporia, that’s cool. that’s for YOU. but all i ask is to not use it to collectively refer to my ethnicity as a whole. it feeds into the colonial mentality that is so ingrained in our culture, where many filipinos conform to western standards in everything, from language to fashion to beauty, and it needs to end. we don’t need westerners making it harder for us to embrace ourselves. it’s hard enough as it is.
back in 2015, tumblr made me start using “filipinx” to refer to my people under the guise of gender neutrality. this made me forget this small but significant part of my own culture. it made me forget my own language. thank god there were people who made me stop and think and get out of the western mentality that is so deeply ingrained in me by society. what i don’t understand is how this trend is still being used to this day.
just. please. it’s 2017. call us who we are: filipino.
and to further my point, this has been already discussed here. if you’re one of the people still using ‘filipinx’ as a blanket term for my entire ethnicity, i beg you to read the link and understand.
as much as im All For ending colonial mentality and wester-centracism i think ??? claiming tagalog is a completely gender neutral language is false???
i love how ‘anak’ and ‘asawa’ for example aren’t gendered but ignoring other highly gendered terms and titles like ‘ ate/kuya’, ‘tito/tita’ is ? incorrect
the fact a lot of people use ‘filipino vs filipina’ as well sort of operates on this binary (i’ve only ever had this used?? whilst in the philipines?). while i think its really important to criticize western impositions on our culture i think using filipinx as a more inclusive term can actually be really helpful esp for trans and non-binary folk and does more to counter western colonial binary gender systems
I was considering ignoring this, but now that I know the reasoning behind the use of x in the word ‘filipino’. I thought otherwise.
First of, I love how your counterarguments use words that were never originally Filipino in the first place. Ate, kuya, tita, and tito are loanwords from other countries. Ate and kuya are from Chinese, the Philippines has always done trade and business with China. That gigantic potato wedge of a country is just a boat away from us. We have a shit ton of words and traditions borrowed from China, I assume you’d know that since you said you’ve been in the Philippines.
Tita and tito are from Spanish (tia and tio), this is obviously because the Philippines was a Spanish colony for 300 years. Look through pre-colonial Philippines history and a lot of the stuff was gender neutral, that all changed when the Spanish nation attacked and butted in. Going so far as to change our whole writing system.
Secondly, the use of female words like filipina, and even things like pinay and iska (changing “o” to “a” to make words girlier, basically), is something awkward for a lot of Filipinos. Sure, it’s used in modern informal settings. But it feels like sand in my mouth when I say it. Filipino, Pilipino, and Pinoy can be for any gender. Filipina, Pilipina, and Pinays can only be for females and is pretty new in the language. This was something inspired by English (and possibly Spanish again), and was slowly accepted as time passed by. FILIPINA IS MOSTLY A WESTERN THING.
Your examples are examples of what colonization did to us, and quite frankly, is a poor example of how well-verse you are with the language.
Now, remove the loanwords from Tagalog and it is gender neutral. I can attest to that. Compared to other dialects from the country, Tagalog has a fountain of gender neutral terms to use. Popular example is husband and wife. Tagalog only has “asawa”. Dialects like Bisaya specifically have “bana” for husband and “asawa” for wife.
Son or daughter? Just say “anak”.
Grandson or granddaughter? Just say “apo”.
You don’t like sister or brother? Call them “kapatid”.
Hero or heroine? Neither, we all call them “bayani”.
Boy or girl? Don’t have that unless you specify, you call any kid “bata”.
He or she? It’s “siya”.
We even have modernized terms without trying so hard. A lot of Filipinos will address someone as “Mamser” (Ma’am+Sir) to be gender neutral, it’s less of a hassle to keep track when you have a lot of people to entertain.
In fact, adding gender in Tagalog is possible. But it’s so awkward and such a hassle. A girl is “batang babae”, a boy is “batang lalaki”. Unless you use ate or kuya (and that only applies to people older than you), if you want to say sister you say “kapatid na babae” and if you want to say brother it’s “kapatid na lalaki”. Wife could probably be “asawa na babae” or “babaeng asawa” but Filipinos will look at you like you’re stupid if you say that. Adding gender for most things is long and clunky.
When Filipinos say that “filipino” is a gender neutral term, you can’t argue that it’s not. You are wiping away a part of our culture. Or your culture. I don’t know with you.
By all means, insist on making a gender neutral word more gender neutral for the sake of trans and non-binary folk. This is like you insisting on a more trans word than trans for the sake of trans people. Or a more non-binary word than non-binary for the sake of non-binary people.
This is like making the word American more gender neutral by adding an x, like Amerixan or something. It’s incredibly pretentious and ignorant.
I’d also like to add that there are languages that are considered gender neutral despite specific instances that they are not. I was surprised to find out Japanese was gender neutral, considering there are plenty of ways to say “I”, “We”, “They”, and other things depending if you’re male or female. But I also know that they have a gender neutral way of speech if the person wishes it, so yeah I can see why it’s gender neutral.
A gender neutral language does not mean that it’s completely devoid of binary genders. It just means you have more choices of words to use when you don’t want something male or female.
You want to celebrate the gender spectrum, fine. But you’re spitting on every Filipino by saying we should use “Filipinx” because you think “Filipino” isn’t a good enough neutral word.
Hey just so you know i was born and raised in the Philippines and am part of the diaspora so please ???? dont assume im white ?
Ive done a research into pre-colonial gender systems as well and do acknowledge and appreciate the amount of non gendered language that we have.
But claiming complete neutrality is difficult because words used commonly as part of the language are still very gendered ??? I can see why using filipino would be more correct but i guess as a nonbinary person who is constantly and actively misgendered through language i at least like having ??? a more actively neutral term to refer to myself as ? But i can see why filipino is a better term to use for the wider community but claiming neutrality on a system that has been influenced by other cultures but non the less is very rigidly used to enforce gender is inaccurate. and yes i think reclaiming and reasserting the autonomy of pre-colonial history is useful in countering this
I already knew you were Filipino from your reblog, but what annoyed me is that two other Filipinos had explained why this is problematic and you used only a few words in a language that has a large vocabulary and dialects to say that it’s not.
What annoyed me further is that the OP explained how it’s hurtful for our culture but you said that it’s inclusive and fights against Western influence. The exact opposite of what OP said.
Filipino is a Spanish word, but we made it ours when it was deemed as gender neutral. Filipinx in the sense that you want it gender neutral, means you undid what we did to it. It means that Filipina is something that should exist in the first place.
I had to say my part, and another Filipino (who is a linguistic major) also said their part (I saw your second reblog). What makes me annoyed is that it took four Filipinos to explain their side to make you get why. And I still doubt you get it.
The first thing I noticed was a tremor. I’m a computer programmer and I kept accidentally hitting the shift key. Then I started to lose my sense of smell. And finally came the depression. My wife made me see a doctor. She said to me: ‘Either you get on an antidepressant, or I’m going to.’ That’s when I learned I had Parkinson’s. Over the years my tremors got worse. My voice got quieter. I had to quit working. My dopamine levels fell so low that I lost communication between my brain and face. I couldn’t express any emotion. My daughter grew up without seeing me smile. I probably seemed distant. A lot of times I felt like I couldn’t fit in with the rest of the family. Then a few months ago I had an experimental surgery. They inserted a wire in my head that stimulates the brain with electricity. Now all my emotions are coming back. I’m more talkative. I have more energy. I’ve cried more in the last few months than I have in the past thirty years. And for the first time in her entire life, my daughter can finally see me smile.”
