Learn English – Where did “folx” originate

etymology

I've been noticing the term "folx" appear in my transgender circles recently, but I'm not sure where it came from.

This article from the Boston Globe uses the term in an article addressing recent trends in gender-neutral neologisms, but only incidentally.

It doesn't seem – to me – like it's more gender-neutral than "folks," so I'm curious why the addition was made.

I'm looking around online, and there's a lot of speculation, but it's difficult to find anything definitive. Ideas I've seen include,

  • that it just looks better,
  • that it matches other neutral forms, like "Latinx,"
  • that it's tonally in line with a punk theme

But these ideas can only explain why it's still in use, and not where it came from.

Is its origin known?

Best Answer

It seems notable that an earlier cited use of an "X" to denote gender neutrality is in the honorific Mx., which dates in writing to the 1970s.

According to this article in The Huffington Post, Latinx appears to have grown into use in the 2000's, and it appears from articles covering folx that it was also cited in writing as recently as the 21st century.

The OED has this to say about the etymology of "Mx."

Apparently < M- (in Mr n., Mrs n.1, Ms n.2, etc.) + X n., probably denoting an unknown or variable quantity (compare sense 3 at that entry)

The referenced sense 3 refers to "X" as it is commonly used in algebra to refer to an unknown entity, and allusive extensions.

Katherine Rosman in The New York Times describes the earliest found citation of the honorific:

The first citation of Mx. found by Ms. Martin’s team dates to 1977, in a publication called The Single Parent. In the midst of the Ms. era, an article in it wondered whether a courtesy title that masks gender might help ameliorate any bias against single parents. “On second thought, maybe both sexes should be called Mx.,” the article said. “That would solve the gender problem entirely.”

This leads me to believe that "X" as a gender-neutral particle originated with "Mx.," functioning as a wildcard character of sorts, and was used similarly by the communities that coined "Latinx" and "folx."

It's possible that "folx" evolved independently of these other words that use "x" to denote gender-neutrality, but it would also be a significant coincidence. For this reason, I suspect that tracing earlier uses of gender-neutral "x" is the best we can do regarding an etymology of "folx."

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