Découverte de la non-binarité : le témoignage de Cami

Even if you don't understand,

you can always support us.

Our identity remains legitimate

and it exists.

[Testimonies: Non-binarity]

My name is Camille,
I'm 22, I'm non-binary

I'm here to talk to you
about non-binarity.

Non-binarity is an umbrella term

that includes all gender identities

that are neither exclusively masculine

or exclusively feminine.

That can be agender,

so ''a'', subtraction,
genderless, which is neutral,

or it can be all fluid identities,

like if we imagined gender
as a spectrum with two poles,

the masculine and the feminine.

We can have a cursor that moves.

All people who are gender fluid,
demi-gender, pangender, etc.

I never really identified with femininity.

At 18, I was already starting
to question my gender identity,

and I met a trans man,

who I was with for a while,

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

which was non-binary.

I think it's because
he had a lot more information than me

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

Gender identity is who we are.

It's the gender we feel,
live and experience.

And gender expression
is what we show others.

It's the way we express this identity.

We can have a gender identity,

for example, masculine:

we are a man,

and we will have a gender expression

which will be feminine,

with many markers
considered feminine in society.

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

with a feminine gender expression.

I told my parents I was non-binary

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

I was 20,
so that was two years ago.

My mom took it very well.

She was already well-versed
in gender issues.

She was quite aware and very safe.

I felt secure.

My dad was a little trickier.

It took me a little longer to tell him

and I didn't do it in person.

I sent him a message

because it was easier for me to handle.

He reacted quite well.

He said he didn't
understand everything,

but that in any case,
he would support me

and it didn't change
anything for him,

that he loved me the same.

For my grandmother,
it was less straightforward,

because it was something
very far removed from her.

She grew up in the country.

Later, she moved to Paris.

She lived with my grandfather
for 50 years.

She was in a very
cis heteronormative environment,

where she had never questioned
her own identity

or the identity of others.

When I told her about it,
she was a bit shocked,

but she always made sure

to behave
in the best possible way with me.

She makes a huge effort,

she almost never makes a mistake
using my preferred name.

I applied to change my name in 2019.

I made a request

to the town hall
of the city where I lived.

I picked up an application

that I filled out with testimonials
from my family and friends

saying that they used
the name Cami for me.

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

I then submitted my application.

I waited a few months.

It varies from one town hall to another.

And I received an acceptance
of the name change.

Misgendering someone,

is to address that person

using the wrong pronouns,

so gendering a non-binary person

who would have explicitly said

to use neutral pronouns,
such as the pronoun "they",

and gendering them
as feminine or masculine.

Personally,
I use feminine pronouns in conversation

and neutral pronouns in writing.

But it's true that in general,

I tend to say it right away,

that I prefer to be addressed

with feminine pronouns when speaking.

Afterwards, if the person does not say it
on their own

and you prefer to be sure
you're gendering them correctly,

you can ask them their pronouns

or wait for the person
to gender themselves in front of you

to follow their gendering.

On videos I've made before,

there were a lot of comments

invalidating our identities

and denying our gender expressions
and gender identities.

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

because I know that for the most part,

they are malicious or very, very tactless,

and they'll just make me upset.

I once took part in a news story
in which you could hear

that it was a fad,

that it only appeared a few years ago

in the United States, 10 years ago,

that it really
had something to do with fashion,

unisex fashion, etc.

That is completely false.

I think that is also

a very white,
very eurocentric point of view,

because in a great number of cultures,

there are many gender identities

that were totally erased

during colonization, quite simply.

Quite often
we hear that this is problematic,

that it's annoying to create
more and more boxes

to identify, re-identify, etc.,

but I think that it's very important

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

to disidentify from an identity

that was arbitrarily assigned to us.

I think that it's necessary

to also find ourselves community.

To create bonds,
to know that we are not alone,

that there is support,

that there are other people
who are like us,

who will understand and listen.

If I had just one thing to say,

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

you can always support us.

You can learn,

you can deconstruct thought patterns.

You can educate yourself,
you can help your loved ones,

even if you don't understand

the scope of what
their gender identity means.

A second thing
is that all non-binary people

have a different way
of expressing their identity,

that there are people
who will medically transition,

who will take hormones,

who will undergo operations,
others will not,

and that no matter the way

we will be able to transition or not,

socially, medically, etc.

Our identity remains legitimate,
it exists,

and there are many of us.