WEBVTT

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Even if you don't understand, 
you can still support and uplift us.

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Our identities continue to be legitimate 
and to exist.

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[Non-binary Stories]

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I'm Cami, I'm 22 years old, 
I'm non-binary,

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and I'm here to talk about my identity.

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Non-binary is an umbrella term
that includes all gender identities

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that are not exclusively masculine 
or exclusively feminine.

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So, it represents both agender, 
"a" meaning subtraction,

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without gender, which is neutral 
and also all the fluid gender identities

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like if we imagine gender as a spectrum 
with two sides, masculine and feminine,

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and a cursor that moves. 
So, all the people who are

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genderfluid, demigender, pangender, etc.

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I never really identified with femininity.

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When I was 18, 
I started to ask myself questions

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about my gender identity 
and I met a trans man,

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who I was with for some time,
and we finally put my identity into words

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which were non-binary.

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I think it's because he had
way more info than me,

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that he knew how to help find 
the words for my identity.

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Gender identity is what we are.

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It's the gender we feel, live, 
and experiment with

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and gender expression
is what we show others.

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It's how we express that identity.

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So, you could have, 
for example, a gender identity

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that is masculine: so, a man,
and you could have

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a feminine gender expression 
and present using markers

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considered to be feminine.

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Like Bilal Hassani, who is a man

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with a feminine gender expression.

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I told my parents I was non-binary

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and that I also wanted to change my name
at the same time.

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I was 20, so that was 2 years ago,

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and my mom took the news very well.

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She was already up to date 
with gender issues.

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She had deconstructed those concepts
and was very safe.

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I felt secure.

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With my dad, 
it was a little more delicate.

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I took a little more time to talk to him
and I didn't do it in person.

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I sent him a message
because it was easier for me to handle,

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and he reacted pretty well.

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He said he didn't understand everything,
but he would support me

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and that it changed nothing for him,
that he loved me the same.

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With my grandma, it was a little tricky
because it's something

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very unfamiliar for her.

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She grew up in the countryside.
Then, she moved to Paris.

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She lived with my grandpa for 50 years.

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She lived in contexts that were cis
and heteronormative,

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she never really asked herself
about her identity or others'.

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So, when I discussed it with her, 
she was shocked,

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but she's always looked out 
and wanted the best for me.

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She's trying her best;

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she rarely makes any mistakes 
with my name now.

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I made a request to change my name
in 2019.

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I submitted the request to the city
I was living in.

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I obtained a form 
that I filled with evidence

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from my friends that proved they use
the name Cami when referring to me.

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I asked my school to write
a letter of support.

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Then, I submitted my form. 
I waited a couple of months.

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The time varies from city to city.

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And I got my name change accepted.

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The act of misgendering someone,
is to address that person

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while using the wrong pronouns for them.

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Using gendered pronouns
for a non-binary person

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who explicitly said to use
neutral pronouns like "them"

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and to refer to them
with feminine or masculine pronouns.

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Personally, I use feminine pronouns

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when speaking 
and neutral ones when writing.

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But, in general, 
I have a habit of saying right away

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that I prefer to use 
feminine pronouns when speaking.

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If a person doesn't do that

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and you want to make sure 
you're using the right pronouns,

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you can ask for them or wait
until the person refers to themselves

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and follow their lead.

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In the videos I've made previously, 
there are a lot of comments

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invalidating and denying
our gender expression and identity.

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Personally, 
I rarely read those kinds of comments

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because I know 
that most of them are malicious

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or very insensitive 
and will just bother me.

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I've already participated in a report 
where there were comments like:

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this is just a trend,
that it's only appeared

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in the last few years in the US,
10 years ago,

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that it had a connection to fashion,
the unisex fashion trend, etc.

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Well, that's completely false.
I think that it's also

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a very white
and very Eurocentric perspective

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because in a lot of cultures,
we find many gender identities

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that were fully erased 
during colonization, simply put.

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Frequently, we hear that it's problematic
or that it's annoying to recreate

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more and more ways to identify
and re-identify etc.,

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but I think that it's super important
to be able to, primarily,

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identify as something
so you can un-identify from an identity

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that was assigned to you randomly.

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I think that it's also necessary
to find yourself a community,

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to make friends,
know you're not alone,

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that there's support, 
and that there's other people like us,

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that know and listen to us.

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If I had only one thing to say,
it would be: even if you don't understand,

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you can still support and uplift us.

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You can learn,
you can deconstruct your ways of thinking.

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You can educate yourself,

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help your friends,
even if you don't understand everything

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about their gender identity.

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A second thing,

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is that all non-binary people 
have different ways

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of expressing their identity,
there are some

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who will medically transition,
take hormones,

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undergo surgery,
while others won't,

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and no matter the ways
in which we transition or not,

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socially, medically, etc.,
our identities continue to be legitimate,

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they exist, and we aren't going anywhere.