Découverte de la non-binarité : le témoignage de Cami

Even if you don't understand,

you can still support and help.

Our identity, it is valid

and it exists.

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

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

Non-binary is an umbrella term

that includes all gender identities

that are neither exclusively masculine

nor exclusively feminine.

It can be agender,
so "a" is the lack of gender,

genderless, which is neutral

or it can be all fluid identities

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

masculine and feminine.

We can have a curser that moves.

All gender fluid people,

demigender, pangender, etc.

I have never
really identified with femininity.

At the age of 18,
I already started questioning

my gender identity,

and I met a trans man,
who I was dating

for some time,

and together we put
my identity into words

that was non-binary.

I believe that he had more info
than me,

which is why he knew how to help me
find words about my identity.

Gender identity
is what we are.

It is the gender that we feel, live,
and experiment with.

And gender expression
is what we show to others.

It is how we express this identity.

For example, you can have
a gender identity

that is masculine: being a man,

and having a gender expression
of a woman

with a lot of qualities
considered feminine in a 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.

It happened two years ago,
I was 20 back then.

My mom took it well.

By then, she was up to date
with gender issues.

She was already woke on such issues
and super safe.

I felt safe.

With my dad,
it was a bit trickier.

It took me a little bit longer
to talk to him about it,

and I did not do it in person.

I sent him a text,

because it was easier for me to handle.

He took it quite well.

He said he didn't fully get it,
but he would be there for me,

that it changed nothing for him,
and he loved me the same.

For my grandma,
it was a bit of a challenge

because it was something
she was not very familiar with.

She grew up in the countryside.
Later, she moved to Paris.

She was with my grandpa
for 50 years.

She had very cisnormative beliefs,

which never made her question
her own identity

or the identity of others.

When I talked to her about it,
her mind was a bit blown,

but she always stayed put
and held herself together

in the best way possible with me.

She puts in a lot of effort,

and she almost never makes mistakes
in using the preferred name.

I requested a name change
in 2019.

I submitted a request

to the town hall of the city
where I lived.

I obtained a form
that I filled out

with testimonies
from my loved ones

saying that they would use
the name Cami

when talking to me.

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

I then submitted my application
and waited for a few months.

Time varies, depending on the town hall.

And my request of the name change
was accepted.

Misgendering a person
means to address them

with the wrong pronouns,

so to gender a non-binary person
that would have specifically said

to use neutral pronouns,
like ‘they/them’

and to gender him or her
by using feminine or masculine pronouns.

I, personally, use the pronouns
that are considered feminine

when speaking
and neutral ones when writing.

But it is true that in general,
I tend to say it right away,

that I prefer people to address me
with feminine pronouns when talking to me.

But if a person doesn't do it themselves,

and you want to make sure
you are using the right pronouns,

you can ask them their pronouns
or wait for that person

to address themselves in front of you,
so you can follow suit.

Under the previous videos I made,

there were a lot of comments
that invalidate our identities,

that don’t acknowledge
our gender expressions and identities.

But to be honest,
I rarely read those comments

simply because I know
that for the most part,

they are either malicious
or very, very insensitive,

and that they will just hurt my feelings.

I've already participated in a report
where you could hear

that it was only a trend

and it only appeared a few years ago,
10, to be precise, in the US,

that it really had something to do
with the trend,

the unisex culture, etc.

Well, that is completely false.
I think it is also a very white

and very Eurocentric point of view,

because in many cultures,
there are multiple gender identities

that were completely erased
by colonisation, to put it simply.

Quite often, we hear
that it is problematic,

that it is a pain to recreate
more and more cases

to identify, re-identify, etc.

But I think it is super important

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

in order to unidentify from an identity

that was imposed on us
arbitrarily.

I think it is essential
to surround yourself with a community,

to build a rapport,
to know you are not alone

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

that get us and listen to us.

If there was one thing I could say,
it would be this:

even if you don't get it,
you can still support and help.

You can learn,
you can think outside the box.

You can get informed
and help your loved ones,

even if you do not get everything

about their gender identity.

Another thing to add
is that all non-binary people

have a different way
of expressing their identity.

There are people
who will medically transition,

who will take hormones,

who will get a gender-affirming surgery,
while others won't.

Regardless of the way
in which we chose to transition or not,

socially, medically, etc.,

our identity,
it is always valid and it does exist.

We are many.