Even if you don't understand

You can still
support and standy by us.

Our Identity is real
and it exists

(Non-Binary Stories)

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

and i'm here to explain
non-binary to you.

Non-binary, 
is an umbrella term

which includes
all gender identities

that are neither
exclusively male

or exclusively female.

It can be agender, 
the "a" meaning a subtraction

of gender 
or gender neutrality

or it can include
all fluid identities.

Like if we imagine gender
as a spectrum with two poles,

male and female.

You can have a moving cursor

that includes all people
who are gender fluid,

demi-gender, pangender, etc.

I've never really identified
with femininity.

At 18 years old, I already started

to ask questions

on my gender identity,

and I met a trans man

With whom I'd been with for a while,

and together we were able define
my identity

which was non-binary.

I think it was due to him

having way more 
information than me

that helped me find the words 
to explain my identity.

Gender identity is about who you are,

the gender we feel,

that we live in, 
that we experience,

and gender expression,
is what we show to others.

It's how we express this our identity.

It's possible to have a gender identity,

that's for example, male,

you are a man,

and then have a gender expression

that is feminine
with many markers

society considers feminine.

Like for example,
Bilal Hassan, is a man

with a feminine gender expression.

I came out to my parent
as non-binary

and that I wanted
to change my pronouns

at the same time.

I was 20, it was two years ago.

My mom took it well.

She was already well-versed in gender issues

She was quite casual and very safe,

I felt safe.

With my father, 
it was little trickier

it took me a little longer 
to tell him

and i didn't do it in person.

I sent him a text

Because it was easier
for me to handle.

He reacted fairly well.

He said that
he didn't understand it all,

but that in any case
he'd be there for me

and that it changes nothing 
for him

and that he loved me all the same.

For my grandma, it wasn't as simple

as it was something 
very unfamiliar for her.

She grew up in the countryside,
later moving to Paris.

She lived with my grandpa for 50 years.

She was in very 
cis-heteronormative social spaces

where she never had questioned 
her identity

or the identity of others.

When I told her,
she was a bit taken aback,

but she always made sure and insisted that

She would act in the best way
she could with me.

She puts in a lot of effort

She is hardly ever wrong anymore

in using my preferred pronouns.

I ma de a request to change
my first name in 2019

I filed a request

to the town hall of where I lived.

I took a dossier
which i had to fill with

with testimonies 
from those closest to me

to say that they were using
the first name Cami

to address me.

I asked my school
to write me a letter of support.

Then I submitted my application.

I had to wait a few months,

it differs by town hall.

And I received approval 
to change my first name.

The act of misgendering someone

entails addressing this person

with the wrong pronouns,

Therefore, gendering
a non-binary person

who has explicitly said

use neutral pronouns
like "iel" --(they?)

and or gendering them
as male or female.

Me personally,
I use feminine pronouns

when in conversation
and neutral when written.

But it's true that in general
I have a tendency to immediately verbalize

that I prefer to be addressed
with female pronouns.

After, if the person
doesn't say their own

and you want to be sure
in gendering them correctly

you can ask for their pronouns

or wait for the person 
to gender themselves in front of you

so you follow their pronouns.

In my older videos,

There was lots of comments

that invalidated our identities,

denied our expressed gender
and our gender identity.

Afterwards, I read very few
of these comments

simply because I know
for the most part,

They are malicious
or very, very ignorant

and they will only cause me grief.

I was participated in a report (study?)
in which it was said

that it was just a phase,

that it has just emerged 
in the United States over the last few years

that it was connected to fashion,
unisex fashion, etc.

That is completely false.
I also think it's

a super white
and eurocentric point of view

because, in many cultures

there are many genders

that were totally erased

through colonization, 
to put it simply.

So often, we hear
that this is problematic

and it's uncomfortable to put people
in positions to identify, reidentify yourself, etc.

but I think it's super important

to be able to choose in the first place
how we identify with something,

to unidentify with an identity

thats was assigned to us 
at random (arbitrarily).

I also think it's necessary
to build a community,

to create a connection, 
to know you're not alone,

that there is support,

that there are other people
who are just like us,

who understand us, 
who listens to us.

If I could only say one thing,

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

you can alway support and stand by us.

You can learn
you can deconstruct your ideologies,

You can relearn,
you can help those close to you

even if you don't completely understand

the entire scope
of their gender identity.

A second thing, 
is that all no-binary people

have a unique way
of expressing their identity,

There are people
who will do medical transitions,

those who will take hormones,

those who will have operations,
others who won't

and that the method of transition or not

whether socially, medically, etc. does not matter

Our identity remains legitimate
It exists

and there is many of us,
so many.