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.