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Découverte de la non-binarité : le témoignage de Cami

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    Even if you don't understand,
    you can still support and uplift us.
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    Our identities continue to be legitimate
    and to exist.
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    [Non-binary Stories]
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    I'm Cami, I'm 22 years old,
    I'm non-binary,
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    and I'm here to talk about my identity.
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    Non-binary is an umbrella term
    that includes all gender identities
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    that are not exclusively masculine
    or exclusively feminine.
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    So, it represents both agender,
    "a" meaning subtraction,
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    without gender, which is neutral
    and also all the fluid gender identities
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    like if we imagine gender as a spectrum
    with two sides, masculine and feminine,
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    and a cursor that moves.
    So, all the people who are
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    genderfluid, demigender, pangender, etc.
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    I never really identified with femininity.
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    When I was 18,
    I started to ask myself questions
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    about my gender identity
    and I met a trans man,
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    who I was with for some time,
    and we finally put my identity into words
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    which were non-binary.
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    I think it's because he had
    way more info than me,
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    that he knew how to help find
    the words for my identity.
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    Gender identity is what we are.
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    It's the gender we feel, live,
    and experiment with
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    and gender expression
    is what we show others.
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    It's how we express that identity.
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    So, you could have,
    for example, a gender identity
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    that is masculine: so, a man,
    and you could have
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    a feminine gender expression
    and present using markers
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    considered to be feminine.
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    Like Bilal Hassani, who is a man
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    with a feminine gender expression.
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    I told my parents I was non-binary
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    and that I also wanted to change my name
    at the same time.
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    I was 20, so that was 2 years ago,
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    and my mom took the news very well.
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    She was already up to date
    with gender issues.
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    She had deconstructed those concepts
    and was very safe.
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    I felt secure.
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    With my dad,
    it was a little more delicate.
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    I took a little more time to talk to him
    and I didn't do it in person.
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    I sent him a message
    because it was easier for me to handle,
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    and he reacted pretty well.
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    He said he didn't understand everything,
    but he would support me
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    and that it changed nothing for him,
    that he loved me the same.
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    With my grandma, it was a little tricky
    because it's something
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    very unfamiliar for her.
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    She grew up in the countryside.
    Then, she moved to Paris.
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    She lived with my grandpa for 50 years.
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    She lived in contexts that were cis
    and heteronormative,
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    she never really asked herself
    about her identity or others'.
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    So, when I discussed it with her,
    she was shocked,
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    but she's always looked out
    and wanted the best for me.
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    She's trying her best;
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    she rarely makes any mistakes
    with my name now.
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    I made a request to change my name
    in 2019.
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    I submitted the request to the city
    I was living in.
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    I obtained a form
    that I filled with evidence
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    from my friends that proved they use
    the name Cami when referring to me.
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    I asked my school to write
    a letter of support.
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    Then, I submitted my form.
    I waited a couple of months.
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    The time varies from city to city.
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    And I got my name change accepted.
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    The act of misgendering someone,
    is to address that person
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    while using the wrong pronouns for them.
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    Using gendered pronouns
    for a non-binary person
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    who explicitly said to use
    neutral pronouns like "them"
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    and to refer to them
    with feminine or masculine pronouns.
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    Personally, I use feminine pronouns
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    when speaking
    and neutral ones when writing.
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    But, in general,
    I have a habit of saying right away
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    that I prefer to use
    feminine pronouns when speaking.
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    If a person doesn't do that
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    and you want to make sure
    you're using the right pronouns,
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    you can ask for them or wait
    until the person refers to themselves
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    and follow their lead.
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    In the videos I've made previously,
    there are a lot of comments
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    invalidating and denying
    our gender expression and identity.
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    Personally,
    I rarely read those kinds of comments
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    because I know
    that most of them are malicious
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    or very insensitive
    and will just bother me.
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    I've already participated in a report
    where there were comments like:
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    this is just a trend,
    that it's only appeared
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    in the last few years in the US,
    10 years ago,
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    that it had a connection to fashion,
    the unisex fashion trend, etc.
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    Well, that's completely false.
    I think that it's also
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    a very white
    and very Eurocentric perspective
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    because in a lot of cultures,
    we find many gender identities
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    that were fully erased
    during colonization, simply put.
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    Frequently, we hear that it's problematic
    or that it's annoying to recreate
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    more and more ways to identify
    and re-identify etc.,
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    but I think that it's super important
    to be able to, primarily,
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    identify as something
    so you can un-identify from an identity
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    that was assigned to you randomly.
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    I think that it's also necessary
    to find yourself a community,
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    to make friends,
    know you're not alone,
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    that there's support,
    and that there's other people like us,
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    that know and listen to us.
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    If I had only one thing to say,
    it would be: even if you don't understand,
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    you can still support and uplift us.
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    You can learn,
    you can deconstruct your ways of thinking.
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    You can educate yourself,
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    help your friends,
    even if you don't understand everything
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    about their gender identity.
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    A second thing,
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    is that all non-binary people
    have different ways
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    of expressing their identity,
    there are some
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    who will medically transition,
    take hormones,
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    undergo surgery,
    while others won't,
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    and no matter the ways
    in which we transition or not,
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    socially, medically, etc.,
    our identities continue to be legitimate,
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    they exist, and we aren't going anywhere.
Title:
Découverte de la non-binarité : le témoignage de Cami
Description:

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Video Language:
French
Duration:
05:55

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