Even if you do not understand,
you can still support and accompany us.
Our identity remains legitimate
and it exists.
Testimonies Non-binarity
Cami 22 years old, student
My name is Cami, I am 22 years old and non-binary,
and I am here to talk to you about non-binarity.
Non-binarity is an umbrella term
that covers all gender identities
that are neither exclusively masculine
or feminine.
It could mean agender, so “a,” subtraction,
genderless, which is neutral,
or it can mean all fluid identities,
like if we pictured gender as a spectrum with two extremes:
masculine and feminine.
We can also imagine a pointer that scans the spectrum.
It includes everyone who is gender fluid,
demigender, pangender, etc.
I have never really identified with femininity.
At 18, I was already
starting to question my gender identity,
and I met a trans man,
with whom I was with for a while,
and together we were able to put my identity into words,
which was non-binary.
I think that he knew
how to help me find the words for my identity
because he had much more information than I did.
Gender identity is who we are.
It is the gender that we feel,
that we live, that we experience.
And gender expression
is how we present ourselves in front of others.
It is how we express this identity.
We can, for example,
have a masculine gender identity:
that is a man
with a feminine gender expression,
having a lot of traits
that are considered feminine in society.
Like, for example, Bilal Hassani, who is a man
with a feminine gender expression.
I announced to my parents that I was non-binary
and that I wanted to change my first name
at the same time.
I was 20 years old, it was two years ago.
My mother took it very well.
She was already very well-versed in the topic of gender.
She was pretty deinstitutionalized and created a very safe space for me.
I felt safe.
With my father, it was a bit more delicate.
It took me a little longer to tell him
and I did not do it
in person.
I sent him a message
because it was easier for me to handle.
He reacted well enough.
He said that he did not understand everything,
but that, in any case, he would be there to support me
and that it did not change anything for him,
that he loved me just the same.
It was a less straightforward for my grandmother
since it was something that she was very far-removed from.
She grew up in the countryside, then moved to Paris.
She lived with my grandfather for 50 years.
She lived within a very cis-heteronormative framework,
where she never questioned her own identity
or that of others.
When I talked to her about it, she was a bit stunned,
but she always made sure to and made a point of
conducting herself
in the best possible way around me.
She put in a lot of effort,
she almost never makes mistakes
when using my chosen name anymore.
I applied for a change of name
in 2019.
I applied to
the town hall of the city where I lived.
I took out a form that I filled out
with testimonies from my loved ones,
saying they used the name Cami
to address me.
I asked my school to write me a letter of support.
Then, I submitted my application.
I waited for a few months.
It varies depending on the town hall.
And I received approval for the name change.
The act of misgendering someone
refers to addressing them
using the wrong pronouns,
so gendering a non-binary person
who has explicitly stated
they go by neutral pronouns, such as “they”
as either feminine or masculine.
I, personally, use
feminine pronouns when speaking and neutral ones in writing.
But it is true that in general,
I tend to say it straight away,
that I prefer to be addressed
with feminine pronouns when speaking.
Afterwards, if the person does not do so on their own
and you prefer to be sure you are gendering them correctly,
you can ask them for their pronouns directly
or wait for the person to state their gender in your presence
to follow their lead.
In videos I have previously made,
there were a lot of comments
that invalidate our identities,
that deny our gender expressions and gender identities.
Following that, I read very few of these comments,
precisely because I know that for the most part,
they are either malicious or extremely amateur,
and that they will just cause me distress.
I once participated in a report, in which they said
that it was a fad,
that it had only appeared
in the United States, 10 years ago,
and that it had a lot to do with fashion,
unisex trends, or whatever.
That is completely false. I think that it is also
a super white and hyper-Eurocentric perspective
because in a lot of cultures,
there are several gender identities
that have just been completely erased
during colonisation.
Often enough, we hear that it is problematic
or awkward to reinvent more and more labels
to identify oneself, then reidentify oneself, etc.,
but I think that it is extremely important
to be able to first relate to something
to then disidentify from an identity
that was assigned to us arbitrarily.
I think it is necessary
to find oneself in a community as well
to create bonds and to know that we are not alone,
that support is available,
that there are other people who are like us,
who understand us, who listen to us.
The bottom line is
even if you do not understand,
you can still support and accompany others.
You can learn, you can debunk
ways of thinking.
You can educate yourself, you can help your loved ones
even if you do not understand
the full significance of their gender identity.
Another thing is that all non-binary people
have a different way of expressing their identity,
that there are people who will undergo
medical transitions, who will take hormones,
who will have surgeries while others will not,
and that no matter how
we transition or not,
socially, medically, etc.,
our identity remains legitimate, it exists,
and there are a lot of us.