Even if you don’t get it

you can still support and

respect our identity.

It’s valid and it exists.

Testimonials: Non-binary Identities

I’m Camille, 22, non-binary

and I’m here to talk about non-binarity.

Non-binary is an umbrella term

for all gender identities

that aren’t strictly male or female.

It could mean being no gender (agender)

or it could be all fluid identities,

as if we were imagining gender as a

spectrum with two poles mas. and fem.

We can move on this spectrum like a cursor

So, this includes people who are

gender-fluid, demi-gender, pangender, etc.

I never really identified with femininity.

At 18,

I started questioning my gender identity.

I was dating a trans man.

who I spent some time with

And he helped me put words to my identity

which is non-binary.

I think because he had access to

more information than I did

he was able to help me to find the word

of my identity.

Gender identity is about who we are

the gender you feel, live and experience.

Gender expression, on the other hand,

is how we present that identity to others.

It's the way that we express this identity

For example, someone can identify as a man

so he is a man.

He can have a feminine gender expression,

with many makers considered

feminine in society.

Like Bilal Hassani, who is a man

but has a feminine gender expression.

When I came out as non-binary,

I told my parents

I wanted to change my name.

I was 20, so that was two years ago.

My mom was chill,

she was already very aware of gender topic

She is very open-minded,

and made me feel safe.

My dad was a bit trickier.

I waited longer to tell him and

ended up doing it over text.

Because it felt easier that way.

And he responded well and he said

he didn’t fully understand but

reassured me he’d support me

it didn’t change anything for him.

He still loved me the same

My grandma had a harder time with it.

Because it was just so far from her world.

She grew up in the countryside,

later moved to Paris.

She lived with my grandpa for 50 years.

She was part of a cis-heteronormative way

where she never questioned her own identity

or anyone else’s.

So, when I told her about it,

she was a bit taken back.

But she’s always tried her best

to respect me

She makes a huge effort,

and she hardly ever messes up my name.

I applied to change my name in 2019.

I submitted my request

to the city town hall where I lived.

I picked up a file that I filled out

with statements from friends and family

confirming they used the name Cami

to address me.

I asked my school to write me

a letter of support and so on.

Then I submitted my application

and waited a few months.

It varies depending on the city,

and I was accepted for the name change.

Misgendering someone means

using the wrong pronouns for them.

So misgendering a non-binary person

who explicitly said to use neutral pron.

such as “they/them”, but someone refers

to them as “he” or “she” instead

Personally, I use “she/her” when spaeking

and neutral pron. when writing.

I usually tend to say it straight away.

I prefer to be addressed with

feminine pronouns when speaking.

If the person doesn't say it and

you want to be sure about someone’s pron.

you can always ask,

or just wait and see how they refer to

themselves and follow their lead.

In previous videos, there were a lot of

comments invalidating our identities,

denying our gender expressions

and gender identities.

I don’t read those comments very much,

because I know most of them

come from ignorance or just plain malice

and they’d only upset me.

I once participated in a documentary

where you could hear people say that

non-binary was just a trend,

that it only appeared in the U.S.

about 10 years ago

It was tied to fashion, unisex, etc.

But that’s completely false and I think

it’s also a very white,

Eurocentric point of view,

because in many cultures,

many gender identities were totally

erased during colonization, quite simply.

Quite often, we hear that it's problematic

or awkward to keep creating

new gender labels to identify

and re-identify ourselves, etc.

But I think it's really important to

be able to identify with something,

even if we reject the one

we were assigned at birth.

It’s also necessary to get together

in a community to create a bond.

To know that you're not alone.

There's support.

There are other people who are like us,

who understand us, who listen to us.

If I had just one thing to say,

it would be this:

Even if you don't get it,

you can still support and respect people.

You can learn yourself,

challenge old ways of thinking,

you can educate yourself,

and help those around you.

Even if you don’t fully grasp

what their gender identity means to them.

One last thing,

every non-binary people

express their identity differently.

Some will undergo medical transitions,

take hormones, have surgeries,

while others will not.

Someone transitions socially, medically...

Our identity remains legitimate

and it exists. And there are many of us.