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Découverte de la non-binarité : le témoignage de Cami

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    Even if you don't understand
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    You can can still support and stand with us
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    Our identity is still legitimate
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    And it exists
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    Testimonies: being non binary
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    My name is Cami, I’m 22 years old and I'm non-binary
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    And I’m here to talk about being non-binary
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    It's an umbrella term
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    That groups all gender identities
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    That are neither exclusively masculine
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    Nor exclusively feminine
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    This could be agender, “a” means subtraction
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    Without gender, which is neutral
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    Or it could be all fluid identities
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    Like if we imagine gender as a spectrum with two ends
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    Masculine and feminine
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    We could have a cursor that moves
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    All gender fluid people
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    Demigender, pangender, etc
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    I never identified with femininity
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    At 18, i already started
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    Asking myself questions about my gender identity
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    And I met a trans man
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    Who I was with for a bit
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    And together we could put my identity into words
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    That is non-binary
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    I think it was because he
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    Had much more knowledge than me
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    That he knew how to help me find the words
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    for my identity
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    Gender identity, it’s what we are
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    It's the gender we feel
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    That we feel and experiment with
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    And gender expression
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    It’s what we show to others
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    It's how we will express that identity
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    We can have a gender identity
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    For example, masculine
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    one is a man
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    And we’ll have a gender expression
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    that is feminine, with many indicators
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    that are considered feminine in society
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    like Bilal Hassani, who is a man
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    who has a feminine gender expression
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    I told my parents I was non-binary
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    and that I wanted to change my name
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    at the same time
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    I was 20, this was two years ago
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    My mother took it very well
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    She was very up to date on gender issues
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    She was open-minded et safe
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    I felt safe with her
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    With my father it was a bit more delicate
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    I took more time to talk to him
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    And i didn't do it In person
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    I sent him a text
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    Because it was easier for me to manage
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    He reacted well enough
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    He said he didn’t understand it all
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    But that he would always be there to support me
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    And it didn't change anything for him,
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    he loves me the same
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    For my grandmother it was slightly less obvious
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    Because it was something that was not relevant to her
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    She grew up in the countryside.
    Then she came to Paris
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    She lived with my grandfather for 50 years
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    She was in a very cis heteronormative pattern
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    Where she never questioned her identity
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    or others
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    So when i told her
    It was like the earth fell from under her
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    But she always did her best to watch over me
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    She made a huge effort
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    She doesn’t really mess up anymore
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    In using my name
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    I applied to change my name in 2019
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    I applied to the city hall in the city where I lived
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    I took out a file that I filled out
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    with statements from my loved ones
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    that said they’d been using the name Cami to address me
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    I asked my school to make me a letter of support, etc
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    Then I dropped off the file
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    I waited a couple months
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    This varies from place to place
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    And they accepted my name change
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    To misgender someone
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    is to address that person
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    using the wrong pronouns
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    So gendering a non-binary person
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    that explicitly said
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    To use neutral pronouns like “they”
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    and to gender them as feminine or masculine
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    Personally i use feminine pronouns out loud and neutral in writing
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    But in general
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    I have the tendency to say right away
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    I’d prefer if you address me
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    With feminine pronouns out loud
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    Afterwards, if the person doesn’t do it themselves
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    and you want to be sure you’re gendering them correctly
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    You can ask them their pronouns
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    Or wait until the person genders themselves in front of you
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    To follow how they do it
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    In my previous videos
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    there were many comments
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    that invalidated our identities
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    denied our gender expression and identities
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    After that, I rarely read those comments
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    because I know for the most part
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    they’re ill-intended or very insensitive
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    and they’ll just hurt me
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    I participated in a report where we could hear
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    that it was a trend,
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    It had only appeared a couple years ago
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    In the States, 10 years ago
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    and it was linked to fashion
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    Unisex fashion, etc
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    That was completely false
    I think it’s also
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    a very white, eurocentric perspective
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    because in so many cultures,
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    we find many gender identities
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    that were completely erased
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    during colonization
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    Often we hear that its problematic
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    Or annoying to recreate more and more categories
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    To identity oneself
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    But i think it's very important
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    to identify with something
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    so you can unidentify with an identity
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    that was assigned to you arbitrarily
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    I think it's necessary
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    to find yourself a community
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    to make connections and know you’re not alone
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    that there is support
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    that there are other people like us
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    that understand us and listen to us
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    If I could say just one thing
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    it would be that even if you don't understand,
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    you can still support and stand with us
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    you can learn and deconstruct your way of thinking
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    you can inform yourself, you can help those close to you
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    Even if you don’t understand
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    all that comes with their gender identity
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    A second thing is that all non-binary people
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    have a different way of expressing their identity
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    There will be people
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    Who have medical transitions or take hormones
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    who will have surgeries, others won’t
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    and that no matter how
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    they have the ability to transition or not
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    socially, medically, etc
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    our identity is legitimate, it exists
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    and there are many of us
Title:
Découverte de la non-binarité : le témoignage de Cami
Description:

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Video Language:
French
Duration:
05:55

Yoruba subtitles

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