Découverte de la non-binarité : le témoignage de Cami

Even if you do not understand,
you can still support us,

And accept us.

Our identity is real, and it exists.

My name is Cami, I'm 22 years old.
I'm non-binary.

I am here to tell you
about the term "non-binary".

"Non-binary" is an umbrella term
which embraces all gender identities

That are not exclusively masculine
nor exclusively feminine.

So it can be agender,

Meaning "without gender",
which is neutral.

Or it can be, all gender-fluid identities.

If we imagined gender,
like a spectrum with two poles,

Masculine and feminine,

With all non-binary genders
included within this spectrum.

So, all who are gender-fluid,
demi-gender, pan gender, etc.

I have never really identified
with femininity.

At 18, I already started
questioning my gender identity.

And I met a trans man
who I was with for some time.

We were able to put words together
to describe my identity,

Which was non-binary.

Because he knew more than I did

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

Gender identity, it is what we are,
it is the gender that we feel,

That we live, that we experience.

And this gender expression
is what we show to others.

It is the manner
with which we express this identity.

So we can have a gender identity,
let's say, masculine, so we're a man.

Or we can have
a feminine gender expression,

With many traits
seen as feminine in the society.

Like Bilai Hassani, who is a man

With a gender expression
that is feminine.

I came out to my parents
that I was non-binary,

I also told them
I wanted a name change.

I was 20 then,
that was two years ago.

And my mother took it very well.

She was no stranger
to gender identity issues.

She was nonjudgmental,
and very, very accepting.

And I felt very safe.

With my father,
it was a little more awkward.

It took me longer
to speak to him about it,

And I didn't do it directly,

I sent him a message, in fact,
because it was easier this way.

He reacted quite well.

He said
that he didn't understand completely

But no matter what,
he would be there for me,

It changes nothing for him,

That he loved me all the same.

As for my grandmother,
it was less obvious.

It was a concept foreign to her.

She grew up in the countryside.

Then moved to Paris.

She lived with my grandfather
for 50 years.

Her ways of thinking
were very cis heteronormative.

She never questioned her identity,
nor the identities of others.

When I spoke to her about it,
she was astonished.

But she was always careful,
and did her best around me.

She made enormous efforts,
and rarely made mistakes

In the use of my preferred first name.

I submitted an application
to change my first name in 2019.

I submitted my application
to the town hall

In the city where I was living.

I took a file and filled it
with testimonies from my loved ones.

To say that they were using
the first name "Cami" to address me.

I asked my school
for a letter of support, etc.

Then I submitted my file.

I waited a few months.

In fact, wait times vary,
depending on the town halls

And my name change was accepted.

The act of misgendering a person

Is to address this person
using inappropriate pronouns.

Gendering a non-binary person

Who would have explicitly said
to use neutral pronouns like "them"

Is actually gender-identifying them
as feminine or masculine.

Personally for me,

I use feminine pronouns
when speaking

And neutral pronouns when writing.

But it is true that in general

That I tend to say right away

That I prefer to be addressed
by feminine pronouns when speaking.

If a person does not do the same,

And you want to be sure

That you are gendering them correctly,

You can ask them
for their pronouns

Or wait until the person identifies
their gender to you

So that you can respect
their identification.

In the videos that I've done before,

There were a lot of comments

That invalidated our identities,

That denied our gender expressions,
and our gender identities.

For me, I rarely read these comments,

Precisely because I know
that for the most part,

They are mean-spirited and ignorant

And they are
just going to cause me grief.

I participated in a report
in which they said

It's a result of fashion,

That it appeared only a few years ago

In the United States, 10 years ago

That it has to do with fashion

Unisex fashion, and so on.

This is completely untrue.

I think that it's a point of view

That's extremely white,
and extremely Eurocentric.

Because in a lot of cultures,

We find many gender identities

That have been totally erased
during colonization, simply put.

Frequently,
we hear that it's problematic,

Or that it is troublesome
to recreate more and more genders

To self-identify,
to re-self-identify, etc.

But I think it's extremely important,

In the first place, to be able
to self-identify with something

To disidentify from an identity

That has been assigned
to us arbitrarily.

I think yes, it's necessary
to find ourselves a community

To create connections,
to know that we're not alone

That there is support.

That there are other people like us,

Who understand us, who listen to us

If I had one thing to say,

I think it would be
that even if you do not understand

You can still support us,
and accept us.

You can learn,

You can deconstruct
set ways of thinking,

You can re-educate,

You can help your loved ones,

Even if you do not understand
the whole scope,

Regardless of their gender identity.

A second thing
is that all non-binary people

Have different ways
of expressing their identity.

There are folks
who will undergo medical transitions,

Who will take hormones,

And who will undergo operations,
and others not.

No matter how they transition, or not,

Socially, medically, etc.

Our identity remains real,
and it exists.

And there are a lot of us.