Spanish assigns gender to almost everything, including groups of people, where the masculine plural has always covered mixed company. A growing number of speakers have simply stopped accepting that convention.

From campuses to institutions

The proposed neutral ending appeared first in student assemblies, then in university communications, and now in the public statements of several ministries and at least two national broadcasters.

The Royal Spanish Academy has declined to endorse it, arguing that grammatical gender is not social gender. Its critics reply that the distinction is cleaner in theory than in a classroom.

Whatever the academy decides, the usage is now common enough that dictionaries will eventually have to describe it.