Hear ye! Hear ye! Ye Corporations, Journalists, Professors, Politicians, and Wokesters! Lords, Ladies, and Non-binaries, hear me now! Stop, I repeat, STOP referring to me as Latinx. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center—and confirmed via very scientific polling of my own friends, family, and randoms across various social platforms approximate ages 8 to 73—stop calling anyone that cringingly ridiculous term. The overwhelming majority of us do not like it.

Interestingly, most folks and institutions that actively use Latinx to label a vast swath of people whose roots lie south of the U.S. border are not actually part of that swath. (Those who are mostly said they started using the term because they either “thought that’s what we were doing now” or they thought the “x” sounded cool. That’s right, much less René Descartes and much more 90s throwback.) Now, I acknowledge that in their minds these non-Latin Americans are probably just using what social media has told them is a much more politically correct and inclusive term for us, but they need only untether themselves from their devices and actually mingle with the people to realize they’ve missed the mark with this one. When a resounding 97% of the people you’re trying to identify either don’t know, don’t like, or prefer not to use the label you’re forcing upon them then perhaps you should reconsider. Otherwise, with each utterance of the word you reveal that either a) you don’t understand and care to learn how Spanish actually works or b) you’re purposely being a patronizing self-righteous dick. Now see, at least I gave you a choice. Regardless of whether good or ill intent drives you, cultural ignorance and a lack of respect is the product. But let’s give you the benefit of the doubt and accept a plea of well-intentioned denseness on your part. Consider this your edification.

Spanish is a beautiful language with gendered nouns. Not only do people and names have genders, places and things do too, and utilizing this grammatical characteristic and other linguistic word-specific traits are what makes Spanish so rich, poetic, and romantic. It is unsettlingly weird that mostly non-Spanish speakers would deem it their right to hijack a language with over twelve centuries of history and attempt to make it gender-neutral in a way that isn’t even pronounceable in Spanish.

Respecting culture and advocating for diversity mean something to you, does it? Then how about not anglicizing my parent’s language—a gift they gave me when they decided that despite the potential for discrimination they would run a Spanish-speaking household to raise bilingual children. Ask any immigrant, descendent of immigrants, or person with ties to their ancestral country of origin how difficult it is to conserve a language outside of the motherland. It won’t be long until you find a grandmother who can’t even ask her grandchild—eyes glazed over by their mind-sludging tablet—how their day at school went. Besides, here’s a newsflash for you, “Latino” is already an inclusive term, something you would know if, again, you actually understood the language and culture.

Despite “Latino” and “Latina” referring to male and female genders, “o” is also utilized in Spanish to refer to a collective group. The word Latino already encompasses men, women, and those in any other category. If as a non-Spanish speaker you find this concept hard to grasp then just think about the word “human.” Humans, as in homo sapiens sapiens, are the species of primates we all belong to—man, woman, or neither. Now, how many people do you see fighting a battle against the word “human” because it has the word “man” in it? Does anyone seriously think we need to incorporate huwoman, or better yet hux, into our lexicon? Well this Latinx bull hovers in that same ludicrous space. Except in this case it applies to a specific minority group who find the term to be stupid, disrespectful, and unnecessary. Yet still it gains traction.

Look, if as an indigenous person, mestizo or Latin American of European descendent—especially one that identifies as non-binary or gender non-conforming—one chooses to be called Latinx over Latino, Hispanic, or Latin American that’s fine. It’s an opt-in if desired kind of deal. But that label shouldn’t be forced upon all of us. For those of us who take pride in our heritage Latinx is just another condescending example of the pseudo-enlightened force-feeding us what it thinks is best for our own ignorant sake. (Or at the very least blindly perpetuating a narrative without considering the larger affected populace.) That used to be the domain of a particular wing of our nation’s two-party system, but as an individual who adamantly resists mental colonization from both ends of the ideological spectrum I can tell you that neither side has a monopoly on being overconfident and clueless. Just think for a moment of the incongruence between the purported values of those who advocate for the exclusive use of this label for the entirety of a people and the alleged championing of multiculturalism.

No amount of misguided attempted moral extortion is going to convince me that my parent’s language isn’t sufficiently adequate and in need of an overhaul; particularly when it’s coming from such an uninformed place and peddled mostly by an indifferent lot. We live in a diverse world with different ideas, values, and perspectives. Organizations are committing to greater diversity and inclusion now more than ever. Now call me crazy, but I don’t consider it very inclusive to have one identity come at the expense of another. So to the initial set of parties addressed at the onset, in case you thought we didn’t care I want this to be absolutely clear—we do. So stop, pendejos.