Découverte de la non-binarité : le témoignage de Cami

Even if you are unfamiliar

you can always follow along
and support us

Our identity and existence
remains legitimate

Non-Binarity
Cami's Testimony

My name is Cami,
I am 22 years old and non-binary

and I'm here to discuss
non-binary identity

Non-binary is an umbrella term

that includes many
genre identities

that are neither
exclusively masculine

nor exclusively feminine.

Including, for instance, agender

"A" meaning subtraction,
without gender or gender neutral

Or, this can include
gender fluid identities.

If we imagine gender as
a spectrum with two poles

the masculine and
the feminine.

We can imagine
a sliding scale.

Including all the people
who are genderfluid

demi-gender, pangender, etc.

I never really identified
with femininity.

By 18 I had already begun
to question

regarding my gender identity

then I met a trans man

who I was with for some time

and we began
to put my identity into words,

which ended up being
non-binary

I think it was because

he had much more
information than me

that he helped me
identify my identity in words.

Gender identity is who we are

It's the gender we feel,

that we live and
that we experiment

Gender expression is
what we show others

It is how we express our identity.

We can have a gender identity

for example: masculine

So, we are a man,

we will have
an expression of gender

that will be feminine

with many signifiers
considered feminine in society.

Like, for example,
Balil Hassani, who is a man

with a feminine gender expression

I came out to my parents as non-binary

and that I wanted
to change my name

at the same time.

I was 20 years old,
it was two years ago

My mother took it very well

She was already very up-to-date
on the idea of gender

She was understanding enough,
and very safe

It made me feel secure.

My father was a different story

I put a little more time into
talking with him

and I didn't

in reality.

I sent time a message in the end
because it was easier for me

He received it well enough

He said that
he didn't fully understand

but he would still be there
to support me

and it didn't change anything for him.

For my grandmother, it wasn't as clear

because it was very foreign to her.

She grew up in the countryside,
before moving to Paris.

She lived with my grandfather
for 50 years.

She lived in very
cis hetero-normative regime

where she never
posed questions about identity

or the identity of others.

So when I told her,
she was a little taken aback,

but she had always tried
to act in a way

that was best for me.

She puts in enormous effort

she doesn't struggle as much with
my preferred pronouns

I filled a request to change
my first name

in 2019.

I filed a request

with the city hall in my town

I took a dossier which I had to fill

with testimonies from
my close friends and familly

stating they use the name Cami

to address me.

I asked my school for
a reference letter.

Then I returned my dossier.

I had to wait several months.

It varies by city.

And, I received an
acceptation of name change.

Improperly gendering a person is

addressing a person

using the wrong pronouns,

thus, gendering a non-binary person

who has explicitly said

use neutral pronouns like they

and or gendering as
masculine or feminine

Me, personally, I use feminine pronouns
when spoken out loud

and neutral when in writing.

In practice, I have a tendency to say

more often than not

that I prefer to be addressed with
feminine pronouns

That being said,
if a person doesn't say it themselves

and you want to gender them correctly

you can ask for their pronouns

or wait for them to say it themselves

to reflect their preferred gender

On my previous videos

there were many comments

which invalidated our identities,

which deny our gender expressions,
and our gender identities

I read very few of these comments

simply because I know,
for the most part,

they are malicious
or very, very misconstrued,

and just want to cause me greif.

I previously participated in an
exposé where it was said that

it was a trending fad,

that it appeared out of nowhere,

in the United States,
in the last decade,

that it was tied, really,
to the fashion

the unisex fashion, etc.

This was completely false.
And I think it was also

a super white point of view,
Eurocentric point of view,

because, in numerous cultures

we find many gender identities

that were completely erased

during colonialism, straight up.

All to often,
we hear that it's problematic,

or that it's annoying to recreate
more and more ways to identify, reidentify, etc.,

but I think it's super important

to be able to choose in the first place
how we identify,

not the identity that was given to us arbitrarily.

I think it is also important to
have a community,

to create connection,
to know we're not alone,

that there is support,

that there are other people
that are like us,

that understand us,
that listen to us.

If I have one thing to say

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

you can always support
and stay open-minded.

You can learn,

you can deconstruct regimes of thought.

You can relearn,
you can hep those close to you,

even if you don't fully understand

everything that encompasses
their gender identity.

Secondly, it's that
everyone who is non-binary

has their own way of expressing
their identity,

that there are people who will have
medical transitions,

who will take hormones,
who will get operations elsewhere

and that, no matter how someone
chooses to transition,

whether that's socially, medically, etc.

Our identities remain legitimate,
they exist,

and we're here to stay.