Even if you don’t understand, you can still support and stand by us.
Our identity is still real and valid.
[Non-binary Stories]
My name is Cami, I’m 22
And I’m here to talk about my non-binary identity.
Non-binary is an umbrella term for any gender identity
that isn’t exclusively masculine or exclusively feminine.
That could be agender
“a” indicating the absence of gender
which is neutral
Or it could be a fluid identity.
If we imagine gender as a spectrum
with two poles: masculine and feminine
A fluid identity might move around that spectrum.
This includes people who are gender fluid,
demigender, pangender, etc.
I never really identified with femininity.
At 18, I was already questioning my gender identity
and I met a trans man who I dated for a while.
Together, we put my identity into words: non-binary.
I think that because he was much more informed than me
He was able to help me find the words to describe my identity.
Gender identity is who you are.
It’s the gender you feel, that you live, that you experience.
And gender expression is what you present to the world.
It’s the way you express your identity.
For example, you could have a masculine gender identity:
So you’re a man,
And your gender expression could be feminine,
with lots of markers that society thinks of as feminine.
For example, Bilal Hassani is a man with a feminine gender expression.
When I came out to my parents as non-binary,
I also told them that I wanted to change my name.
It was two years ago, when I was 20.
My mom took it very well.
She was already well versed in gender identity
She’d done enough unlearning.
I felt safe with her.
Telling my dad was a bit trickier.
It took me longer to talk to him, and I didn’t do it in person.
I sent him a message because it was easier for me to manage.
He reacted quite well.
He said he didn’t understand everything but that he supported me no matter what,
that it didn’t change anything for him, and that he loved me just the same.
It was harder for my grandmother 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 a very cisheteronormative environment
where she never questioned her gender identity or anyone else's.
When I told her, she was a bit out of her depth.
But she always made sure to interact with me
in the best way she could.
She tries really hard.
She almost always uses my chosen name now.
I applied for a legal name change in 2019.
I applied to the town council where I was living at the time.
I sent in a folder that I filled with statements from friends and family
confirming that they used the name Cami to refer to me.
I asked my school for a letter of support.
Then I submitted my application.
I waited a few months.
Wait times vary by municipality.
And my name change was approved.
Misgendering someone
is using the wrong pronouns to refer to someone.
So for a non-binary person
who explicitly asked you to use "they/them" pronouns
misgendering them would be using she/her or he/him pronouns for them.
Personally, I use "feminine" pronouns when speaking
and neutral pronouns when writing.
In general, I tend to say right away
that I would like to be referred to with feminine pronouns in conversation.
If someone doesn’t say it unprompted
and you want to be sure to gender them correctly
you can ask them what their pronouns are
or wait and see how they refer to themselves
and follow their lead.
On previous videos I’ve made,
there were lots of comments that invalidated our identities
and denied our gender expressions and gender identities.
I don’t read many of these comments
because I know that most of them are hateful or extremely tactless,
and they’re just going to hurt me.
I participated in a previous report
where I heard people say that our identities are just a trend,
that they only appeared a few years ago, 10 years ago in the U.S.,
that it was actually about fashion, particularly unisex fashion, etc.
That is completely false.
I think it’s also an exceptionally white and Eurocentric perspective.
We see many cultures that recognize several gender identities
that were completely erased during colonization, essentially.
Quite often we hear that it’s problematic or annoying to create labels upon labels
to define and redefine our identities.
But I think it’s super important to identify with something
so as to separate ourselves
from identities that were arbitrarily assigned to us.
I think it’s also necessary to find community,
to create connections, to know we’re not alone,
that we’re supported,
that there are other people like us who understand us, who hear us.
If I could say just one thing,
I think it would be that even if you don’t understand,
you can still support and stand by us.
You can learn
And you can deconstruct your ways of thinking.
You can ask your loved ones, and you can help them
even if you don’t completely understand what their gender identity means.
In addition, all non binary people express their identity differently.
Some will transition medically, take hormones, get surgeries
while others won't.
And regardless of whether and how someone transitions,
socially, medically, etc.,
Our identity is still real and valid, and there are a lot of us.