Even if you do not understand,

you can still support and assist us.

Our identity remains legitimate 
and real.

Testimonies:
Nonbinary

My name is Cami, 
I'm 22, and I'm nonbinary

I'm here to talk about
nonbinary

Nonbinary is an umbrella term

gathering
all gender identities

that are not exclusively
masculine

nor feminine

It can be agender
with the substration "a"

without a gender, someone neutral

or it can be all fluid identities,

as if we thought of gender

as a spectrum with two poles, 
a masculine and a feminine one.

It can be like a cursor that moves.

All people that are genderfluid,

demigender, pangender, etc.

I never really identified with feminity

At 18, I already started

to have doubts about my gender identity,

then I met a trans man,

whom I dated for some time

and we could put words 
on my identity

which is nonbinary

I think it's because

he had more info than I did

that he was able 
to help me find the words

for my identity.

Gender identity is what we are.

It is the gender we feel,

we live and experiment.

And gender expression,

is what we will show to people.

It's the way we express this identity.

We can have a gender identity,

for instance, masculine:

we are a man,

and we can have a feminine

gender expression with 
a lot of indicators

considered feminine in society.

For example, RuPaul, 
who's a man

with a feminine gender expression.

I told my parents 
that I was nonbinary

and that I wished to change my name

at the same time.

I was 20, it was two years ago.

My mom took it really well.

She was already aware of 
gender questions.

She was mostly deconstructed 
and very safe.

I felt safe.

For my father, the subject was 
a bit more sensitive.

It took me a little longer
to tell him

and I didn't tell him face-to-face.

I sent him a text,
since it was easier for me.

He reacted pretty well.

He said he didn't understand everything,

but that in any case, 
he would be there to support me

and that it didn't change anything for him,
he still loved me the same.

For my grandmother, it was not easy,

since she was unfamiliar with the subject.

She grew up in the countryside.
Then, moved to Paris.

She lived with my grandfather 
for 50 years.

She was surrounded by cisgender 
and heteronomous patterns,

where she never questioned her identity

or someone else's.

When I told her, she was dumfounded,

but she always watched over me 
and cared for me

in the best way possible.

She made many efforts,
she rarely makes mistakes anymore

in using my preferred name.

I requested a change of name

in 2019.

I put in a request to the city hall

of the town I used to live in.

I withdrew a record I filled up

with testimonies of my family and friends

saying they called me "Cami".

I asked my school to write 
a support letter.

Then, I handed in my record.

I waited a few months.

It depends on the city halls

And I received an acceptance
to change my name.

Misgendering someone,

is to address that person,

by using the wrong pronouns,

so, gender a nonbinary person

who would have explicitly said

to use neutral pronouns like "they/them",

and gender them
as feminine or masculine.

Personally, I use the pronouns

said feminine in speaking 
but neutral in writing.

It is true usually,

I tend to say it right away,

that I prefer be referred as

feminine pronouns in speaking.

However, if the person doesn't do it 
by themselves

and you want to be sure 
not to misgender them

you can ask for their pronouns

or wait for them to gender themselves 
in front of you

to follow their gendering.

In the videos I previously made,

there are a lot of comments

invalidating our identities,

denying our gender expressions 
and identities

I rarely read these comments,

especially because I know

that most are mean or extremely clumsy,

and that they will only hurt my feelings.

I have already taken part in a report
in which we could hear

that it was a trend,

that it only appeared a few years ago,

10 years ago, in the US,

that it was really linked to a trend,

the unisex trend, etc.

Which is completely false.
I believe it is also

an extremely white and 
Eurocentric perspective,

since in many cultures,

we find several gender identities

that have been erased

during colonization, that's it.

We often hear that it is problematic,

it is embarrassing to keep creating 
more and more boxes

to identify ourselves 
again and again, etc.

but I think it is really important

to, first, be able to identify with something

to unidentify from an identity

which was arbitrarily assigned to us.

I believe it is necessary

to gather in a community

to bond and know we are not alone,

that there is support,
and others like us,

who understands and listens to us.

If I had to say one thing,

I think it would be that although 
you do not understand,

you can always support and assist.

You can learn, you can deconstruct

ways of thinking.

You can inform yourselves, 
help your surroundings,

even if you do not understand

the importance of their gender identity.

Another thing is that each nonbinary person

has a different way of expressing 
their identity,

some people will have medical transitions,

some will take hormones,

some will undergo surgeries, others won't,

and no matter the way

we transition or not,

socially, medically, etc.

Our identity remains legitimate,

it exists,
and we are many.