,Even if you don’t understand .you can still always support us
.Our identity remains valid, and it exists
.My name is Camille, I'm 22 years old I’m non-binary, and I’m here to talk
.to you about non-binary identities Nonbinary is an umbrella term that
includes all gender identities that are
neither exclusively masculine nor exclusively feminine
,so it can be agender meaning a subtraction without
a" gender that is neutral, or it can be" all fluid identities, as if one
imagined gender as a spectrum with
two poles, masculine and feminine, with .a slider that moves across
So, all people who are ,.genderfluid, demigender, pangender, etc
.I never really identified with femininity
At 18, I already started to ask myself questions about my gender identity
and I have met a trans man with whom I was with for a while
and we were able to put my identity into words
which was therefore non-binary, and
I think it's because he had more information than I did
that he was able to help me find the words .regarding my identity
Gender identity is what we are. It's the gender we feel, live, and experiment with
and gender expression is .what we show to others
It is the way we express that identity ,So we can have, for example
a gender identity that is masculine so a man and
we could have a feminine gender expression with
,lots of markers our .society considers feminine
For example, Bilal Hassani, a man with a feminine gender expression
I announced to my parents that I was non-binary and that
I wanted to change my name at the same time
I was 20 years old, so it was 2 years ago
and uh, my mom took it very well
She was already very aware of the
gender issues, she was quite deconstructed and very, very safe
.I felt secure
My dad, it was a little more delicate
It took a bit more time to talk to him about it, and I didn't
do it in person, I sent him a message, actually, because
it was easier for me to manage, and he reacted quite well. He said that he
didn't fully understand but in any case
he would support me, and .it changed nothing for him
he loved .me the same
As for my grandmother it was a little less obvious
because it was something .very distant for her
She grew up in the countryside then she moved to Paris, she lived
.with my grandfather 50 years She lived in contexts that were
very cis & heteronormative
where she had never questioned her own identity or the identity of others
So, when I told her, she was a bit taken aback, but she always
looked out and wanted the best for me
She made a lot of effort; she rarely made .mistakes with my name now
I made a request for a name change in 2019
I made a request .to the city I was living in
I picked up a file that I filled out with testimonies from my
family members to say that they used the name Camille to address me
I asked my school to provide me with a letter of support, etc. Then I
submitted my application and I waited a few months
Actually, it varies by city
but my request for a name change was accepted
To misgender someone is to speak to them
,using the wrong pronouns so, gendering a non-binary person who
explicitly said to use "neutral pronouns, like the pronoun "they
.and to gender it, in feminine or the masculine
Personally, I use feminine pronouns when speaking and neutral in writing
and it's true that, in general, I have .a tendency to say right away
I prefer to be addressed with feminine pronouns in conversation
after, if they don't it on their own
and you would prefer to be .sure to address the gender correctly
you can ask them their pronouns or wait until they identify their gender in
front of you to follow their gender expression
in the videos I've already made previously, there were many comments
that invalidated our identities, that denied our gender expressions
and our gender identities. After, I read very few of those comments because I know
Most of them are malicious or very .insensitive and would hurt my feelings
I have already participated in a report in which we could
,hear that it was just a trend ,that it had only appeared a few years ago
in the United States 10 years ago, that ,it was also related to fashion
.like unisex fashion, etc
That's completely false, and I think that it's also a
very white and very Eurocentric point of view
because in many cultures around the world we can find
several gender identities that were completely erased during colonisation
,We often hear that it's problematic or it's embarrassing to create more and
more categories to self-identify
.,and re-self-identify, etc But I think that it's really important
in the first place, to be able to self identify with something in order to
de-self-identify with an identity .that was arbitrarily assigned
And I think, yes, it's necessary to find a .community, to create connections
to know we're not alone that there
is support and other people who are like .us, who understand us, who listen to us
If I had just one thing to say I think it would be that
even if you don't understand, you .can always support and be with us
You can learn, you can deconstruct your patterns of thought
,you can educate yourself you can help your loved ones
even if you don't fully understand .what matters is their gender identity
Secondly, all non-binary people have a different way of expressing
their identity. There are people who ,will undergo medical transitions
,who will take hormones ,undergo surgeries
regardless others will not, and that , of how we might transition or not
,.socially, medically, etc our identity remains valid, and it exists
.And there are many of us