It’s been conclusively proven in poll after poll over the last couple of years that most Latinos hate the term “Latinx,” with some having never heard of it and not wanting to hear it ever again.

According to Merriam-Webster, the woke version of Latino and Latina “is used generally as a gender-neutral term for Latin Americans, but it has been especially embraced by members of Latin LGBTQ communities as a word to identify themselves as people of Latin descent possessing a gender identity outside the male/female binary.”

Because the term not only does not resonate with most in the Latino community but also offends some of the older generations, some Democrats in Congress including Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) have quietly made moves to stop using it altogether in formal communications. Some of their affiliated special interest groups have responded accordingly by doing the same.

But some Democrats who previously embraced the term wholeheartedly are singing a strange new tune when they see it being used by others. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), a freshman “Afro-Latino” Congressman, is today’s case in point.

After the New York Yankees Twitter account went “woke” in the aftermath of the horrific Uvalde, Texas mass shooting, Torres took issue with their use of “Latinx,” stating that he’d “never heard anyone locally use the term” and proclaiming the term was “imposed on” the Latino community by… corporate America and the government or something. He even cited one of the polls that show how unpopular it is with Latinos:

I represent the South Bronx, home to the Yankees. Never heard anyone locally use the term ‘Latinx.’

Does a majority of Hispanics actually use the term ‘Latinx’?

If the answer is ‘no’, how did ‘Latinx’ come to be the term to use in government and Corporate America? https://t.co/4EYR1ksywx

— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) May 27, 2022

I never said there should be a ban on the term ‘Latinx.’ Quite the opposite.

I mostly use the term ‘Latino’ whereas Corporate America & government almost exclusively uses the term ‘Latinx’.

I am simply wondering why in light of the following study: https://t.co/rBTBtbmmhh

— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) May 28, 2022

There were a couple of problems with Torres’ mini-rant, though, the first one being that it’s not the government nor corporate America who “imposed” the term on anyone. It was wokesters in his own party.

Secondly and perhaps more embarrassingly, Torres himself has used the term on a number of occasions in a favorable way:

Democrats before and after seeing polls pic.twitter.com/0LtwlHaASZ

— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) May 28, 2022

Not only was Torres called out by conservatives over his politically convenient about-face, but his supporters on the left weren’t too happy with him for his flip flop and seeming abandonment of the gender-neutral members of the Latino LGBTQ coalition.

“You know damn well that term was not created by corporate America it was created by LGBTQ+ LatinX to self identify within the spectrum. There are so many things you could centered your attention on, this an absolute waste for those who supported you,” tweeted one.

If he’s smart (and that’s a big “if”), Torres will start spending less time on Twitter embarrassing himself by arguing about “Latinx” and more time focusing on resolving the infighting going on between colleagues over New York’s new Congressional maps.

And when he’s not doing that, maybe he can join the Latino community in fighting the next “woke” word that will likely be foisted on Latinos by the more radical members of the Democratic party: “Latine.”

I’ve already got the popcorn popping.

Flashback: Hispanic GOP Congressman Rips Miami Herald Big Time After an Insulting Editorial on Hispanic Conservatives