Even if you don't understand it,
you can still support us
and take care of us.
Our identities continue to be legitimate,
and they exist.
[Testimonies: Being non-binary]
[Cami, 22, student]
My name is Cami,
I am 22 years old,
I am non-binary,
and I'm here to talk to you
about being non-binary.
"Non-binary" is an umbrella term
that encompasses all gender identities
that are neither exclusively masculine
nor exclusively feminine.
This can represent "agender",
"a" meaning subtraction,
without a gender or being neutral
or it can represent all
fluid gender identities;
we can imagine gender as
a spectrum with two sides,
masculine and feminine,
and we have a cursor that moves.
So we have people
who are genderfluid,
demigender, pangender, etc.
I never really identified with femininity.
At 18 years old, I began to ask myself
questions about my gender identity,
and I met a transgender man
who I was with for some time,
and we were able to put my identity
into words,
which was "non-binary".
I think it's because he had a lot more
knowledge than me
that he was able to help me find the words
regarding my identity.
Gender identity is what we are.
Gender is what we feel, live,
and experiment with,
and gender expression is what we show
to others.
It's the way we express this identity.
For example, you could have a
gender identity,
such as masculinity,
identifying as a man;
and you can have a gender expression
that is feminine
using markers that are considered
feminine in society.
An example is Bilal Hassani,
a man
with a feminine gender expression.
I told my parents that I was non-binary
and that I would like to change my name
as well.
I was 20 years old, so it's been 2 years.
My mom took it very well.
She was already very aware
of topics surrounding gender.
She had dismantled these ideas,
and was a safe person.
I felt secure.
With my dad,
it was a little more delicate.
I took a little more time
to talk to him about it
and I didn't do it in person.
I sent him a message,
because it was easier for me to manage.
He reacted pretty well;
he said he didn't understand everything,
but regardless,
that he would be there to support me,
and that nothing would change for him,
that he would love me the same.
With my grandmother,
it was a bit unclear
because it was something
very foreign to her.
She grew up on the countryside,
then she went to Paris.
She lived with my grandfather
for 50 years.
She was in cis, heteronormative
environments
where she never questioned
her own identity
or the identities of others.
When I spoke about it with her,
she was a bit stunned,
but she always ensured that
she was on her best behaviour
with me.
She has made enormous efforts;
she rarely makes mistakes
with my name now.
I put in a request
to change my name
in 2019.
I sent the request in
to the city hall of the town
that I was living in.
I received a form
that I filled out
with testimonies of my friends
that say they use the name Cami
to refer to me,
and I asked my school to write a letter
of support.
Then, I submitted my case document.
I waited a few months.
This wait varies with city halls.
And then I received an approval
for my name change.
Misgendering someone
is when you address someone
using the incorrect pronouns,
so gendering a non-binary person
that has already explicitly stated
that they use neutral pronouns,
like "they",
and you gender them
as masculine or feminine.
I personally use feminine pronouns
when speaking,
and neutral pronouns
when writing.
Generally,
I do have the tendency
to say right away
that I prefer that I be referred to
with feminine pronouns when speaking.
If a person doesn't do that,
and you would like to know for sure
how to refer to them,
you can ask them for their pronouns
or wait for the person
to refer to themselves
so you can follow suit.
In the videos
that I have done previously,
there were a lot of comments
that invalidated our identities,
that denied our gender expressions
and our gender identities.
Afterwards, I've read fewer
of these comments,
mainly because
for the most part,
they're malicious,
or very insensitive,
and they're just going to
hurt my feelings.
I've participated in a report
where we heard that
being non-binary
was a result of fashion;
that this just appeared
in the past decade
in the US,
that this is closely related to fashion,
like unisex fashion, etc.
This is completely false.
I think that this is a hyper-White,
hyper-Eurocentric point of view
because in many cultures,
there are many gender identities
that were totally erased
by colonization, simply put.
Frequently, we hear that
this is problematic
or annoying to create more
and more boxes
to self-identify with,
to re-identify with, etc,
but I think
that it's super important
to even be able to self-identify
with something
in order to un-identify
with an identity
that was arbitrarily assigned
to us.
I think it's necessary
to find a community
to create a bond,
to know that you're not alone,
that you have support,
that there are other people
like us,
that understand
and listen to us.
If I had one takeaway for everyone,
I think it would be
that even if you don't understand it,
you can still support us
and take care of us.
You can learn,
you can deconstruct
your current way of thinking.
You can teach yourself,
help your friends,
even if you don't understand everything
about gender identities.
A second thing would be
that all non-binary people
have a different way
of expressing their identity.
There are people who are going to
transition medically,
take hormones,
undergo operations,
and others won't,
and regardless of the way
we transition or not,
socially or medically,
our identities continue to be legitimate,
and they exist,
and we are a thriving community.
[COSMOPOLITON]