Shat the fuck is a Latinx?
Maybe not the best source but here's a quote from an article on the Oprah Daily website that explains it:
'The word "Latinx" originated in the mid-2000s "in activist circles primarily in the U.S. as an expansion of earlier gender-inclusive variations such as Latino/a (with the slash) and Latin@ (with the “at” sign)," says
Joseph M. Pierce, an assistant professor in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature at Stony Brook University. "The 'x' does not imply a specific gender—as would the 'o' (masculine) or the 'a' (feminine) for nouns in Spanish—and is meant to disrupt the grammatical binary that is inherent in this romance language."
However, the history of using "x" is lengthier, says David Bowles, a writer, translator, and professor at the University of Texas Río Grande Valley in Edinburg, Texas, who is currently working on a book 0n the word Latinx. "Radical feminists in the '90s—and perhaps as early as the '70s—would literally "x" out the "o" at the end of words that were meant to exclude women and non-binary folk all together."
The word "Latinx" is ultimately a "non-gendered, non-binary, inclusive way of pushing back against the default masculine in Spanish," adds Bowles.'
Source:
What Does "Latinx" Mean, Exactly?
The increase in the use of the word is probably due to the increasing proliferation of the progressive moral and political value systems and beliefs that have been adopted across mainstream Western society the last few decades.