Even if you don't get it,
you can be supportive and be with us.
Our identity remains legitimate.
It's valid.
Testimonies Non-binary Gender
I'm Cami, 22 years old, I'm non-binary.
I'm here to talk about being non-binary.
"Non-binary" is an umbrella term.
It brings together all gender identities
that are neither exclusively masculine
nor exclusively feminine.
It could be agender, "a" as in taking away,
without gender, neutral,
or it could be all fluid identities,
like when we imagine gender as a spectrum with two poles,
one masculine one feminine,
and a slider that we can move,
for everyone who's gender fluid,
demigender, pangender, etc.
I never really self-identified as feminine.
When I was 18, I already began
to explore my own gender identity,
and I met a trans man,
I was with him for some time,
together we tried to define my identity.
It turned out to be non-binary.
I think it's because
he was more informed than me,
so he could help me find the words
to describe my identity.
Gender identity is part of who we are.
It's the gender that we feel,
that we live and experience.
Gender expression is what we show other people.
It's the way we express this identity.
Someone can have a gender identity
that's, for example, masculine,
so they are a man,
and have a gender expression that's feminine
with more traits considered feminine in society.
Like Jonathan Van Ness, who is a man
with a feminine gender expression.
I came out to my parents as non-binary
and said I wanted to change my name
all at once.
I was 20 years old, it was 2 years ago.
My mom took it well.
She was already familiar with queerness.
She's pretty progressive, a "safe person".
I felt safe with her.
With my dad, it's a bit more tricky.
I spent more time talking with him
and I didn't do it in person.
I sent him a message, it's easier for me to manage.
He took it pretty well,
said he didn't get everything,
but he's there to support me anyway,
it won't change anything for him,
he loves me all the same.
For my grandma, it's a bit less obvious
because it's something quite far from her world.
She's from a rural area, then moved to Paris.
She lived with my granddad for 50 years.
Her surrounding were very cis-heteronormative,
she never questioned her identity or that of others.
When I discussed it with her, she was a bit taken aback,
but she always took care to conduct herself
in the best way possible around me.
She makes an effort.
She doesn't make mistakes with pronouns now.
I applied to change my first name
in 2019.
I made an application with my municipal government.
I got a form, filled it out,
with my friends and family as witnesses
who said they addressed me as "Cami".
I asked my school for a letter of support.
Then, I submitted my form.
I waited a few months,
this varies by municipality,
and my name change was approved.
Misgendering as person
means addressing a person using incorrect pronouns,
like gendering a non-binary person
who explicitly asked you to use neutral pronouns,
like "they/them",
and still addressing them by feminine or masculine pronouns.
Personally, I use what we call
feminine pronouns when speaking, an neutral pronouns in writing.
Actually, in general,
I would tell you, right off the bat,
that I prefer to be addressed
by feminine pronouns in speaking.
If someone doesn't tell you,
and you want to make sure to gender them correctly,
you can ask them their pronouns
or wait for them to gender themselves,
so you can respect their pronouns.
Beneath the videos that I previously made,
there were many comments
refusing to recognize our identities,
denying our gender expression and gender identities.
Anyways, I rarely read these comments,
because I know most of them are ill-intentioned
or just so, so wrong
that they will just hurt me.
I was in a tv report, and in the same program
people were calling it fashion,
saying it appeared only a few years ago,
in the US, 10 years ago,
that it has to do with fashion,
the unisex trend, etc.
That's completely wrong.
I also find it a very white perspective, very Eurocentric,
because in so many cultures,
there are multiple gender identities,
but they were simply wiped out by colonisation.
We often hear people say it's problematic or annoying
to constantly create new vocabulary
to self-identify and reidentify,
but for me it's super important
to first of all be able to self-identify,
in order to disidentify
with the arbitrary identity assigned to us.
I think it's also important
to find your community, bond with people
to know you're not alone, support is available,
and there are more people like us
who understand and listen to us.
If I could only say one thing,
I think it would be that even if you don't get it,
you can be supportive and be with us.
You can learn, you can deconstruct thought patterns,
you can unlearn things, support your friends and family,
even if you don't understand everything about their gender identity.
One more thing:
every non-binary person
has a different way to express their identity.
Whether they choose medical transitions, take hormones,
whether they have surgery, or not,
no matter which way
or whether or not we transition,
socially, medically, etc.,
our identity remains legitimate, it's valid,
and there's a good number of us out there.