Découverte de la non-binarité : le témoignage de Cami

Even if you don't understand

you can always support and assist us.

Our identity remains legitimate

and it exists.

My name is Cami, I'm 22 years old,

I'm non-binary

and I'm here to talk about my binarité

'Non-binary' is an umbrella term

that includes all gender identities that

are neither exclusively masculine

nor feminine

That could be agender, with "a" meaning

a subtraction, so without gender

which is neutral. Or it can be all

the fluid identities, as we imagine gender

as a spectrum with two poles, masculine

and feminine. And there is a cursor

which slides. So all people who are

genderfluid, demigender, pangender, etc.

I never really related to femininity.

At 18, I started to ask myself questions

on my gender identity and I met

a trans man, who I was with for awhile

and we put together some words

for my identity, so 'non-binary'.

I think it's because he had more info

than me. He helped me find the words for

my identity. Gender identity is what

we are. It's the gender we feel, our

lives, and what we experiment with.

and gender expression is what we present

to others. It's the way we express

that identity. You could have a gender

identity, for example, that's masculine

so a man, and you can have a gender

expression that is feminine, with markers

considered as feminine in society.

Like for example, James Charles, he is

a man with a feminine gender expression.

I told my parents that I was non binary

and that I wanted to change my name also.

I was 20, so two years ago

and my mom took it quite well.

She was already up to date with questions

about gender. She deconstructed them

and it was safe, I felt secure.

For my dad, it was a little bit delicate.

I took more time to talk to him

and I didn't do it in person. I actually

sent him a message, as it was easier

for me to manage. And he took it well.

He said he didn't understand it all,

but he would support me regardless

and that it wouldn't change anything

he loved me the same.

For my grandma, it was less clear,

it's something unfamiliar for her.

She grew up in the countryside. Then

she came to Paris. She lived with

my grandpa for 50 years.

She lived in a very cis heteronormative

context, where she never asked questions

on her identity or of others.

So when I talked to her about it, she

was caught off guard, but she always

tried her best to behave in the best way

she can with me. She makes a lot

of effort, she doesn't make anymore

mistakes with saying my name now.

I made an application to change my name

in 2019, I submitted the application to

the city where I was living in. I obtained

a file that I filled with witnesses from

my close friends, to show that they use

the name Cami to refer to me. I asked

my school to write a letter of support.

Then, I submitted my file and waited a

few months. The time span varies according

to cities. And then I got my name change

accepted.

The fact of wrongly gendering someone

is to address that person while using

the wrong pronouns. So using gendered

pronouns for a non-binary person who had

explicitly said to use neutral pronouns

like "them" and to gender them using

feminine or masculine pronouns.

Personally, I use pronouns referred to

as "feminine" when speaking and neutral

in writing. But, in general, I have the

tendency to say right away that I prefer

to use feminine pronouns for speaking.

After, if a person doesn't do that

for themselves, and you want to be sure

you are correctly gendering them,

you can ask them for their pronouns

or wait until the person refers to

themselves to follow their suit.

In the videos that I've done previously

There was a lot of comments

which invalidated our identities

and denied our gender expressions

and identity. I personally don't read many

of those comments since I know they are

mostly malicious or ill-intentioned

and just want to cause pain.

I already participated in a reporting

where we could hear that it's just

a trend which came up a few years ago

in the US, around 10 years ago.

that it had a connection to fashion also,

and unisex fashion, etc.

That is completely false, I think that

it's also a very white perspective

and very Eurocentric.

because in many cultures, we will find

many gender identities that were totally

erased during colonization.

Oftentimes, we hear that it's problematic

or it's annoying to recreate more and more

ways to identify ourselves, but I think

it is very important to be able to,

mainly identify as something so

to unidentify from an identity that

was assigned to us arbitrarily.

I think it's also necessary to find

a community to create connections, to know

you're not alone, where there is support,

and there are others who are like us

who know and listen to us.

If I had one single thing to say, I think

it would be that even if you don't

understand, you can always support

and assist us. You can learn, you can

deconstruct your ways of thinking.

You can educate yourself, you can help

your close friends, even if you don't

understand their whole gender identity.

Another thing, all non-binary people have

different ways of expressing their

identity, there are some who want to do

medical transitions, take hormones,

who will do surgery operations, while

others won't, but no matter the way you

transition or not, socially or medically,

our identity remains legitimate,

it exists, and there are many of us.