-
Even if you don't understand it,
-
you can still support us
and take care of us.
-
Our identities continue to be legitimate,
and they exist.
-
[Testimonies: Being non-binary]
-
My name is Cami,
I am 22 years old,
-
I am non-binary,
-
and I'm here to tell you
about being non-binary.
-
"Non-binary" is an umbrella term
-
that encompasses all gender identities
-
that are neither exclusively masculine
or exclusively feminine.
-
This can represent "agender",
"a" meaning subtraction,
-
without a gender, being neutral
-
or it can represent all
fluid gender identities;
-
we can imagine gender as
a spectrum with two sides,
-
masculine and feminine,
-
and we have a cursor that moves.
-
So we have people
who are genderfluid,
-
demigender, pangender, etc.
-
I never really identified with femininity.
-
At 18 years old, I began to ask myself
questions about my gender identity,
-
and I met a transgender man
who I was with for some time,
-
and we were able to put my identity
into words,
-
which was "non-binary".
-
I think it's because he had a lot more
knowledge than me
-
that he was able to help me find the words
regarding my identity.
-
Gender identity is what we are.
-
Gender is what we feel, live,
and experiment with,
-
and gender expression is what we show
to others.
-
It's the way we express this identity.
-
For example, you could have a
gender identity,
-
for example, masculine,
-
one is a man,
-
and we can have a gender expression
that is feminine
-
using markers that are considered
feminine in society.
-
For example, Bilal Hassani,
-
who is a man
with a feminine gender expression.
-
I told my parents that I was non-binary
-
and that I would like to change my name
as well.
-
I was 20 years old, so it's been 2 years.
-
My mom took it very well.
-
She was already very aware
of topics surrounding gender.
-
She had dismantled these ideas,
and was a safe person.
-
I felt secure.
-
With my dad,
it was a little more delicate.
-
I took a little more time
to talk to him about it
-
and I didn't do it in person.
-
I sent him a message,
because it was easier for me to manage.
-
He reacted pretty well;
he didn't understand everything,
-
but in any case,
he would be there to support me,
-
and that nothing would change for him,
that he would love me the same.
-
With my grandmother,
it was a bit trickier
-
because it was something
very foreign to her.
-
She grew up on the countryside,
then she went to Paris.
-
She lived with my grandfather
for 50 years.
-
She was in cis, heteronormative
environments
-
where she never questioned
her own identity
-
or the identities of others.
-
When I spoke about it with her,
she was a bit stunned,
-
but she always looked after
and cared about me
-
to behave in the best way possible.
-
She has made enormous efforts,
-
she rarely makes mistakes with my
name now.
-
I put in a request
to change my first name
-
in 2019.
-
I sent the request in
-
to the city hall of the town
that I was living in.
-
I received a form
that I filled out
-
with testimonies of my close friends
-
that say they use
the name Cami
-
to refer to me.
-
I asked my school to write a letter
of support.
-
Then, I submitted my case document.
-
I waited a few months.
-
This wait varies with city halls.
-
And then I received an acceptance
to change my first name.
-
Misgendering someone
-
is when you address someone
-
using the incorrect pronouns,
-
so gendering a non-binary person
-
that has already explicitly stated
-
that they use neutral pronouns,
like "they",
-
and you gender them
as masculine or feminine.
-
I personally use feminine pronouns
when speaking,
-
and neutral pronouns
when writing.
-
But in general,
-
I do have the tendency
to say right away
-
that I prefer that I be referred to
with feminine pronouns when speaking.
-
If a person doesn't do that,
-
and you would like to know for sure
how to refer to them,
-
you can ask them for their pronouns
-
or wait for the person
to refer to themselves
-
so you can follow suit.
-
In the videos
that I have done previously,
-
there were a lot of comments
-
that invalidated our identities,
-
that denied our gender expressions
and our gender identities.
-
Afterwards, I've read fewer
of these comments,
-
mainly because
for the most part,
-
they're malicious,
or very insensitive,
-
and they're just going to
hurt my feelings.
-
I already participated in a report
where we heard that
-
this was just a fashion trend;
-
that this just appeared
in the past few years
-
in the US, 10 years ago;
-
that this is closely related to fashion,
-
like unisex fashion, etc.
-
This is completely false.
-
I think that this is a hyper-White,
hyper-eurocentric point of view
-
because in many cultures,
there are many gender identities
-
that were totally erased
by colonization, simply put.
-
Frequently, we hear that
this is problematic
-
or that it's annoying to create more
and more boxes
-
to self-identify with,
to re-identify with, etc,
-
but I think
that it's super important
-
to even be able to self-identify
with something
-
in order to unidentify
with an identity
-
that was arbitrarily assigned
to us.
-
I think it's also necessary
to find a community
-
to create a link,
and knowing that you're not alone,
-
that you have support,
-
that there are other people
like us,
-
that understands us,
and that listen to us.
-
If I had only one thing to say,
-
I think it would be
that even if you don't understand it,
-
you can still support us
and take care of us.
-
You can learn,
you can deconstruct
-
your current way of thinking.
-
You can teach yourself,
help your close friends,
-
even if you don't understand everything
about gender identities.
-
A second thing would be
that all non-binary people
-
have a different way
of expressing their identity.
-
There are people who are going to
-
transition medically,
take hormones,
-
undergo operations,
and others won't,
-
and regardless of the way
we transition or not,
-
socially or medically, etc,
-
our identities continue to be legitimate,
and they exist,
-
and we are a thriving community.
-
[COSMOPOLITON]