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Even if you don't understand

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You can can still support and stand with us

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Our identity is still legitimate

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And it exists

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Testimonies: being non binary

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

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And I’m here to talk about being non-binary

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It's an umbrella term

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That groups all gender identities

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That are neither exclusively masculine

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Nor exclusively feminine

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This could be agender, “a” means subtraction

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Without gender, which is neutral

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Or it could be all fluid identities

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Like if we imagine gender as a spectrum with two ends

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Masculine and feminine

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We could have a cursor that moves

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All gender fluid people

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Demigender, pangender, etc

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I never identified with femininity

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At 18, i already started

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Asking myself questions about my gender identity

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And I met a trans man

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Who I was with for a bit

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And together we could put my identity into words

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That is non-binary

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I think it was because he

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Had much more knowledge than me

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That he knew how to help me find the words

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for my identity

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Gender identity, it’s what we are

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It's the gender we feel

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That we feel and experiment with

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And gender expression

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It’s what we show to others

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It's how we will express that identity

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We can have a gender identity

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For example, masculine

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one is a man

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And we’ll have a gender expression

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that is feminine, with many indicators

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that are considered feminine in society

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like Bilal Hassani, who is a man

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who has a feminine gender expression

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I told my parents I was non-binary

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and that I wanted to change my name

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at the same time

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I was 20, this was two years ago

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My mother took it very well

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She was very up to date on gender issues

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She was open-minded et safe

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I felt safe with her

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With my father it was a bit more delicate

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I took more time to talk to him

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And i didn't do it In person

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I sent him a text

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Because it was easier for me to manage

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He reacted well enough

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He said he didn’t understand it all

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But that he would always be there to support me

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And it didn't change anything for him,

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he loves me the same

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For my grandmother it was slightly less obvious

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Because it was something that was not relevant to her

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She grew up in the countryside.
Then she came to Paris

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She lived with my grandfather for 50 years

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She was in a very cis heteronormative pattern

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Where she never questioned her identity

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or others

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So when i told her
It was like the earth fell from under her

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But she always did her best to watch over me

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She made a huge effort

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She doesn’t really mess up anymore

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In using my name

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I applied to change my name in 2019

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I applied to the city hall in the city where I lived

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I took out a file that I filled out

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with statements from my loved ones

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that said they’d been using the name Cami to address me

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I asked my school to make me a letter of support, etc

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Then I dropped off the file

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I waited a couple months

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This varies from place to place

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And they accepted my name change

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To misgender someone

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is to address that person

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using the wrong pronouns

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So gendering a non-binary person

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that explicitly said

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To use neutral pronouns like “they”

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and to gender them as feminine or masculine

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Personally i use feminine pronouns out loud and neutral in writing

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But in general

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I have the tendency to say right away

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I’d prefer if you address me

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With feminine pronouns out loud

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Afterwards, if the person doesn’t do it themselves

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and you want to be sure you’re gendering them correctly

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You can ask them their pronouns

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Or wait until the person genders themselves in front of you

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To follow how they do it

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In my previous videos

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there were many comments

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that invalidated our identities

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denied our gender expression and identities

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After that, I rarely read those comments

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because I know for the most part

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they’re ill-intended or very insensitive

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and they’ll just hurt me

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I participated in a report where we could hear

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that it was a trend,

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It had only appeared a couple years ago

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In the States, 10 years ago

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and it was linked to fashion

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Unisex fashion, etc

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That was completely false
I think it’s also

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a very white, eurocentric perspective

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because in so many cultures,

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we find many gender identities

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that were completely erased

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during colonization

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Often we hear that its problematic

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Or annoying to recreate more and more categories

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To identity oneself

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But i think it's very important

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to identify with something

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so you can unidentify with an identity

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that was assigned to you arbitrarily

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I think it's necessary

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to find yourself a community

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to make connections and know you’re not alone

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that there is support

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that there are other people like us

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that understand us and listen to us

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If I could say just one thing

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

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you can still support and stand with us

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you can learn and deconstruct your way of thinking

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you can inform yourself, you can help those close to you

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Even if you don’t understand

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all that comes with their gender identity

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A second thing is that all non-binary people

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have a different way of expressing their identity

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There will be people

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Who have medical transitions or take hormones

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who will have surgeries, others won’t

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and that no matter how

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they have the ability to transition or not

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socially, medically, etc

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our identity is legitimate, it exists

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and there are many of us