Découverte de la non-binarité : le témoignage de Cami

Even if you don't understand,

you can always support and accompany us.

Our identity, it is real
and it exists.

[Non-binary stories]

My name is Cami, I am 22, I am non-binary

and I'm here to talk about
non-binary identities.

Non-binary, it's an umbrella term

which covers all gender identities

that are not exclusively male

or exclusively female.

It could be agender, so "a",
the subtraction

is no gender, which is neutral

or it could be all the fluid identites,

like if we imagine gender as a spectrum
with two sides

male and female

We can have a cursor that moves
along the spectrum

People who are gender fluid, demigender,
pangender, etc.

I never really identified feminine.

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

and I met a trans man,

who I was with for some time,

and we were able to put my identity into
words together,

which was non-binary

I think it was because he had a lot more
information than I did,

so he was able to help me find the words
concerning my identity.

Gender identity, it's who we are.

It's the gender we feel, that we live,
that we try out.

And the expression of gender,

it's what we're going to show others.

It's how we express this identity.

You can have a gender identity,

for example, male - you are a man,
and you'll have a female gender expression

with a lot of markers
considered feminine by society.

Like for example, Bilal Hassani,
who is a man

with a female gender expression.

I told my parents that I was non-binary

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

I was 20,
that was 2 years ago.

My mother took it really well.

She was already well versed
in gender issues.

She was deconstructed enough
and really safe.

I felt secure.

My father, it was a bit more delicate.

It took me longer to tell him,

and I didn't do it in person.

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

and uhh

He reacted quite well.

He said he didn't fully understand,

but that in any case
he would be there to support me

and that it changed nothing for him,

that he loved me the same.

For my grandmother,
it was a bit less clear,

because it was something
far removed from her.

She grew up in the country.
Then she moved to Paris.

She lived with my grandfather
for 50 years.

She was in very
cis heteronormative patterns,

where she never questioned her identity
or the identity of others.

When I told her about it,
she was a bit taken aback,

but she has always been careful
to behave in the best possible way with me

She makes a huge effort,
she's hardly every wrong

in the use of my chosen name.

I applied for a first name change in 2019.

I applied with the town hall
of the city I lived in.

I withdrew a file that I filled out with
testimonials from my family and friends

to say they used the first name Cami
to address me.

I asked my school to write me
a letter of support, etc.

Then I submitted my application.

I waited a few months.

It varies according to the town hall.

And I was accepted
to change my first name.

Misgendering someone, means addressing
them using the wrong pronouns.

So to gender a non-binary person,
who explicitly said

use neutral pronouns,
like the pronoun "they",

and to then gender them female or male.

Me personally, I use the pronouns female
when spoken to and neutral when written.

But it's true that in general,

I have the tendency
to say them immediately,

because I prefer to be addressed
with female pronouns when spoken to.

After, if the person doesn't do it back

and that you want to be sure to
gender them correctly,

you can ask them their pronouns
or wait until they are gendered in front of you

to know their gender.

On the videos that I previously did,
there were a lot of comments

that invalidate our identities, that deny
our gender expressions and identities

After that, I don't read
these comments much.

Precisely because I know for the most part,
they are malicious or very, very clumsy,

and they're just going to
make me feel bad.

I once took part in a report
in which it was suggested

that it was just a trend,
that it showed up only a few years ago

in the US, 10 years ago,

that it really had something
to do with trends, unisex trends, etc.

That is completely not true, and
I also think that it's a

hyper-white and
hyper-Eurocentric perspective

because in a lot of cultures,
there are multiple gender identities,

that were completely erased,
by colonization.

Quite often,
we hear that it's problematic,

it's annoying to recreate to
boxes and more boxes

to identity yourself,
reidentify yourself, etc.,

but I think that it's really important

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

to disidentify from an identity,
that was assigned to us arbitrarily.

I think that it's necessary
to come together as a community

to create connections,
to know we are not alone,

that there is support,
that there are other people like us,

who understand us,
who listen to us.

If I only had one thing to say,

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

you can always support and accompany us.

You can learn, you can deconstruct
patterns of thought.

You can get information,
you can help your loved ones,

even if you don't understand the full
significance of their gender identity.

A second thing is that
all non-binary people

have a different way of
expressing their identity,

there will be people who will have
medical transitions, take hormones,

who will have operations,
others who won't,

and that it doesn't matter whether
we can transition or not,

socially, medically, etc.

Our identity is real, it exists

and there are a lot of us.