Découverte de la non-binarité : le témoignage de Cami

,Even if you don’t understand
.you can still always support us

.Our identity remains valid, and it exists

.My name is Camille, I'm 22 years old
I’m non-binary, and I’m here to talk

.to you about non-binary identities
Nonbinary is an umbrella term that

includes all gender identities that are

neither exclusively masculine nor
exclusively feminine

,so it can be agender
meaning a subtraction without

a" gender that is neutral, or it can be"
all fluid identities, as if one

imagined gender as a spectrum with

two poles, masculine and feminine, with
.a slider that moves across

So, all people who are
,.genderfluid, demigender, pangender, etc

.I never really identified with femininity

At 18, I already started to ask myself
questions about my gender identity

and I have met a trans man with whom
I was with for a while

and we were able to
put my identity into words

which was therefore non-binary, and

I think it's because he had
more information than I did

that he was able to help me find the words
.regarding 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 to others

It is the way we express that identity
,So we can have, for example

a gender identity that is masculine
so a man and

we could have a feminine gender
expression with

,lots of markers our
.society considers feminine

For example, Bilal Hassani, a man
with a feminine gender expression

I announced to my parents that I
was non-binary and that

I wanted to change my name
at the same time

I was 20 years old, so it was 2 years ago

and uh, my mom took it very well

She was already very aware of the

gender issues, she was quite
deconstructed and very, very safe

.I felt secure

My dad, it was
a little more delicate

It took a bit more time to talk to him
about it, and I didn't

do it in person, I
sent him a message, actually, because

it was easier for me to manage, and he
reacted quite well. He said that he

didn't fully understand
but in any case

he would support me, and
.it changed nothing for him

he loved
.me the same

As for my grandmother
it was a little less obvious

because it was something
.very distant for her

She grew up in the countryside
then she moved to Paris, she lived

.with my grandfather 50 years
She lived in contexts that were

very cis & heteronormative

where she had never questioned
her own identity or the identity of others

So, when I told her, she
was a bit taken aback, but she always

looked out and wanted the best for me

She made a lot of effort; she rarely made
.mistakes with my name now

I made a request for a name change
in 2019

I made a request
.to the city I was living in

I picked up a file that
I filled out with testimonies from my

family members to say that they used the
name Camille to address me

I asked my school to provide me with a
letter of support, etc. Then I

submitted my application and
I waited a few months

Actually, it varies
by city

but my request for a name
change was accepted

To misgender someone
is to speak to them

,using the wrong pronouns
so, gendering a non-binary person who

explicitly said to use
"neutral pronouns, like the pronoun "they

.and to gender it, in
feminine or the masculine

Personally, I use feminine pronouns
when speaking and neutral in writing

and it's true that, in general, I have
.a tendency to say right away

I prefer to be addressed
with feminine pronouns in conversation

after, if they
don't it on their own

and you would prefer to be
.sure to address the gender correctly

you can ask them their pronouns or
wait until they identify their gender in

front of you to follow
their gender expression

in the videos I've already made
previously, there were many comments

that invalidated our identities, that
denied our gender expressions

and our gender identities. After, I read
very few of those comments because I know

Most of them are malicious or very
.insensitive and would hurt my feelings

I have already participated in
a report in which we could

,hear that it was just a trend
,that it had only appeared a few years ago

in the United States 10 years ago, that
,it was also related to fashion

.like unisex fashion, etc

That's completely false, and I think
that it's also a

very white and very
Eurocentric point of view

because in many cultures
around the world we can find

several gender identities that were
completely erased during colonisation

,We often hear that it's problematic
or it's embarrassing to create more and

more categories to
self-identify

.,and re-self-identify, etc
But I think that it's really important

in the first place, to be able to self
identify with something in order to

de-self-identify with an identity
.that was arbitrarily assigned

And I think, yes, it's necessary to find a
.community, to create connections

to know we're
not alone that there

is support and other people who are like
.us, who understand us, who listen to us

If I had just one thing to say
I think it would be that

even if you don't understand, you
.can always support and be with us

You can learn, you can deconstruct your
patterns of thought

,you can educate yourself
you can help your loved ones

even if you don't fully understand
.what matters is their gender identity

Secondly, all non-binary people have a
different way of expressing

their identity. There are people who
,will undergo medical transitions

,who will take hormones
,undergo surgeries

regardless others will not, and that
, of how we might transition or not

,.socially, medically, etc
our identity remains valid, and it exists

.And there are many of us