Even if you are unfamiliar
you can always follow along
and support us
Our identity and existence
remains legitimate
Non-Binarity
Cami's Testimony
My name is Cami,
I am 22 years old and non-binary
and I'm here to discuss
non-binary identity
Non-binary is an umbrella term
that includes many
genre identities
that are neither
exclusively masculine
nor exclusively feminine.
Including, for instance, agender
"A" meaning subtraction,
without gender or gender neutral
Or, this can include
gender fluid identities.
If we imagine gender as
a spectrum with two poles
the masculine and
the feminine.
We can imagine
a sliding scale.
Including all the people
who are genderfluid
demi-gender, pangender, etc.
I never really identified
with femininity.
By 18 I had already begun
to question
regarding my gender identity
then I met a trans man
who I was with for some time
and we began
to put my identity into words,
which ended up being
non-binary
I think it was because
he had much more
information than me
that he helped me
identify my identity in words.
Gender identity is who we are
It's the gender we feel,
that we live and
that we experiment
Gender expression is
what we show others
It is how we express our identity.
We can have a gender identity
for example: masculine
So, we are a man,
we will have
an expression of gender
that will be feminine
with many signifiers
considered feminine in society.
Like, for example,
Balil Hassani, who is a man
with a feminine gender expression
I came out to my parents as non-binary
and that I wanted
to change pronouns
at the same time.
I was 20 years old,
it was two years ago
My mother took it very well
She was already very up-to-date
on the idea of gender
She was understanding enough,
and very safe
It made me feel secure.
My father was a different story
I put a little more time into
talking with him
and I didn't
in reality.
I sent time a message in the end
because it was easier for me
He received it well enough
He said that
he didn't fully understand
but he would still be there
to support me
and it didn't change anything for him.
For my grandmother, it wasn't as clear
because it was very foreign to her.
She grew up in the countryside,
before moving to Paris.
She lived with my grandfather
for 50 years.
She lived in very
cis hetero-normative regime
where she never
posed questions about identity
or the identity of others.
So when I told her,
she was a little taken aback,
but she had always tried
to act in a way
that was best for me.
She puts in enormous effort
she doesn't struggle as much with
my preferred pronouns
I filled a request to change
my first name
in 2019.
I filed a request
with the city hall in my town
I took a dossier which I had to fill
with testimonies from
my close friends and familly
stating they use the name Cami
to address me.