Découverte de la non-binarité : le témoignage de Cami

Even if you don't understand,
you can still support and uplift us.

Our identities continue to be legitimate
and to exist.

[Non-binary Stories]

I'm Cami, I'm 22 years old,
I'm non-binary,

and I'm here to talk about my identity.

Non-binary is an umbrella term
that includes all gender identities

that are not exclusively masculine
or exclusively feminine.

So, it represents both agender,
"a" meaning subtraction,

without gender, which is neutral
and also all the fluid gender identities

like if we imagine gender as a spectrum
with two sides, masculine and feminine,

and a cursor that moves.
So, all the people who are

genderfluid, demigender, pangender, etc.

I never really identified with femininity.

When I was 18,
I started to ask myself questions

about my gender identity
and I met a trans man,

who I was with for some time,
and we finally put my identity into words

which were non-binary.

I think it's because he had
way more info than me,

that he knew how to help find
the words for my identity.

Gender identity is what we are.

It's the gender we feel, live,
and experiment with

and gender expression
is what we show others.

It's how we express that identity.

So, you could have,
for example, a gender identity

that is masculine: so a man,
and you could have

a feminine gender expression
and present using markers

considered to be feminine.

Like Bilal Hassani, who is a man

with a feminine gender expression.

I told my parents I was non-binary

and that I also wanted to change my name
at the same time.

I was 20, so that was 2 years ago,

and my mom took the news very well.

She was already up-to-date
with gender issues.

She had deconstructed those concepts
and was very safe.

I felt secure.

With my dad,
it was a little more delicate.

I took a little more time to talk to him
and I didn't do it in person.

I sent him a message
because it was easier for me to handle

and he reacted pretty well.

He said he didn't understand everything
but he would support me

and that it changed nothing for him,
that he loved me the same.

With my grandma, it was a little tricky
because it's something

very unfamiliar for her.

She grew up in the countryside.
Then, she moved to Paris.

She lived with my grandpa for 50 years.

She lived in contexts that were cis
and heteronormative,

she never really asked herself
about her identity or others'.

So, when I discussed it with her,
she was shocked,

but she's always looked out
and wanted the best for me.

She's trying her best,

she rarely makes any mistakes
with my name now.

I made a request to change my name
in 2019.

I submitted the request to the city
I was living in.

I obtained a form
that I filled with evidence

from my friends that proved they use
the name Cami when referring to me.

I asked my school to write
a letter of support.

Then, I submitted my form.
I waited a couple of months.

The time varies from city to city.

And I got my name change accepted.

The act of misgendering someone,
is to address that person

by using the wrong pronouns for them.

So, using gendered pronouns
for a non-binary person

who explicitly said to use
neutral pronouns like "them"

and to refer to them
with feminine or masculine pronouns.

Me, personally, I use feminine pronouns

when speaking
and neutral ones when writing.

But, it's true that in general,
I have a habit of saying right away

that I prefer to use
feminine pronouns when speaking.

If a person doesn't do that

and you want to make sure
you're using the right pronouns,

you can ask for them or wait
until the person refers to themselves

and follow their lead.

In the videos I've made previously,
there are a lot of comments

invalidating and denying
our gender expression and identity.

Personally,
I rarely read those kinds of comments

because I know
that most of them are malicious

or very insensitive
and will just bother me.

I've already participated in a report
where you could hear comments like

this is just a trend
and that it's only appeared

within the last few years in the US,
10 years ago,

that it had a connection to fashion,
the unisex fashion trend, etc.

Well that's completely false.
I think that it's also

a very white
and very Eurocentric perspective

because in a lot of cultures,
we find many gender identities

that were fully erased
during colonization, simply put.

Frequently, we hear that it's problematic
or that it's annoying to recreate

more and more ways to identify
and re-identify etc.,

but I think that it's super important
to be able to, primarily,

identify as something
so you can un-identify from an identity

that was assigned to you randomly.

I think that it's also necessary
to find yourself in a community,

to create relationships,
know that you're not alone,

that there's support,
and that there's other people like us,

that understand and listen to us.

If I had only one thing to say,
it would be: even if you don't understand,

you can still support and uplift us.
You can learn,

you can deconstruct your ways of thinking.
You can educate yourself,

help your friends,
even if you don't understand everything

about their gender identity.
A second thing,

is that all non-binary people
have different ways

of expressing their identity,
there are people

who will medically transition,
take hormones,

undergo gender-affirming surgery,
while others won't,

and no matter the ways
in which we transition or not,

socially, medically, etc.,
our identities continue to be legitimate,

they exist, and we aren't going anywhere.