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Even if you don't understand,

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You can always support and stand with us.

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Our identity is still real

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and exists.

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My name is Cami, I am 22 years old,
I am non-binary

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and I am here to talk about it.

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Non-binary is an umbrella term

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which emcompasses all gender identities

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who are neither exclusively masculine

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nor feminine.

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It can be agender, 'a' being an absence

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of gender, which means neutral

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or it can be genderfluid,

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like if we imagined gender 
being on a spectrum with two polarities,

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masculine and feminine.

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We can have a slider that moves for

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everyone that is genderfluid,

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demigender, pangender, etc.

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I never really identified as feminine.

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At 18 years old, I already started

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questioning my gender identity

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and I met a trans man,

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whom I was with for some time,

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and we were able to come up
with a group of words on my identity,

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which was non-binary.

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I think that it was because of him

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being more informed than me,

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that he knew how to help find the words

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surrounding my identity.

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Gender identity is what defines us.

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It is the gender we feel,

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the way we live,
the way we experiment.

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Gender expression

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is what we show to others.

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It's the way we will express our identity.

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We can have a gender identity,

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for example, masculine:

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we are a man,

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and we will have a gender expression

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like feminine, with many indicators

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that society would consider as feminine.

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For example, Bilal Hassani,
who is a man

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with a gender expression as feminine.

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I told my parents I was non-binary

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and I wanted to change my first name

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at the same time.

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I was 20 years old, it has been 2 years.

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My mother took it very well.

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She was already knowledgeable
on questions of gender.

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She had already broken it down 
and was safe.

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I felt like I was safe.

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My father was a little more delicate.

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I had to take more time talking about it
with him

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and I did not end up doing it

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for real.

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I sent him a message,

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because it was easier for me
to manage.

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He reacted kind of well.

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He said he didn't understand it all,

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but in all scenarios,
he would be there to support me

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and that it changes nothing for him,

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that he loves me the same.

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For my grandmother, it was
a little less obvious,

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because it was a strange thing for her.

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She grew up on the countryside.
Then she moved to Paris.

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She lived with my grandfather for 50 years.

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She existed in a place that
was very cis heteronormative

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where she never had to question her identity

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or the identity of others.

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When I talked to her about it,
she was dumbfounded,

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but she always stayed by me
and kept

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her composure

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in the best way she could with me.

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She made huge efforts,

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almost never making mistakes

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in the use of my preferred name.

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I filed a request for a first name change

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in 2019.

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I made the request

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next to city hall in the place I lived.

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I pulled out a file that I filled

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with the witness of my loved ones

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to say I was using the preferred name,

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Cami,

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to address myself.

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I asked my school to draw up
a support letter.

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After, I dropped off my file.

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I waited a few months.

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It depends on the city hall,

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but I got my approval to change
my first name.

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The fact of misgendering someone,

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it's to address someone

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using the wrong pronouns,

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so to identify someone as
non-binary

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who has already explicitly said

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to use neutral pronouns like,
they/them,

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and to instead use feminine or masculine.

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Me, I personally use the pronouns that are

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said to be feminine orally,
but written neutrally.

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But it is true in general,

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I typically say right away,

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that I preferrred to be addressed as

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feminine orally.

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After, if the person doesn't do the same

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and you want to identify someone right,

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you can ask them their pronouns

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or wait for them to identify themselves

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to follow their usage.

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In the videos I made previously,

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there were a lot of comments

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that invalidates our identity,

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that deny our gender expressions
and identities.

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After, I'm taken aback on these comments,

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because I know for the most part,

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they are malevolent or very insensitive,

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and they just want to hurt me.

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I already took part in a report 
in which we heard

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that it was a fad,

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that it only appeared
in the past few years

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in the U.S., it's been 10 years,

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that it was very related to fashion,

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unisex fashion, etc.

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That is completely false.
I also believe that

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it is a super white and euro-centric
point of view,

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because in many cultures,

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we find many gender identities

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that were completely erased

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during colonisation basically.

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Often, we hear that it is problematic,

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it's awkward to recreate cases
and more cases on

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identifying oneself or to reidentify, etc.

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But I think it's also super important

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to be able to identify
in the first place

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to get rid of an identity

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that was arbitrarily assigned to us.

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I think it is necessary

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to find ourselves a community

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to create relationships,
to know we are not alone,

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that there is support,

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that there are other people like us,

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that understand and hear us.

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If I had one point to make,

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it would be that
even if you don't understand,

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you can always support and stand with us.

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You can learn and 
deconstruct

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old ideologies.

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You can inform yourself and
help your loved ones,

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even if you don't understand it,

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what matters is their gender identity.

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Another point, is that
all non-binary people

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have a different way of 
expressing their identity,

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where some would

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undergo medical procedures,
take hormones,

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have a surgery,
others not,

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and that despite the way

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that we transition or not,

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socially, medically, etc.

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our identity is still real, it exists,

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and we are very numerous.