How My Gender Nonconforming Identity Affected My Legal Immigration Status
Gender Binary System notes (part 4 of 7)
(Note: This article was originally published on Sept. 12 2016 as ‘Gender Binary System notes.’ It was written as a loose set of notes on the gender-binary as an exclusive system, and its’ limitations, rather than as a cohesive article or essay. I have broken the article up in 7 parts, with 7 different titles, for your reading convenience.)
HOW MY GENDER NONCONFORMING IDENTITY AFFECTED MY LEGAL IMMIGRATION STATUS
I identify as Queer/Lesbian and Trans-Masculine/Gender Nonconforming. Socially that mostly translates into, I’m a Gender Nonconforming Lesbian.
I personally experience no body dysphoria and happen to not need any medical and/or legal transitioning procedures myself, yet do consider myself to be trans-masculine/gender nonconforming and this gender identity, on top of my sexual orientation, did further complicate social and immigration matters for me, specifically through the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996.
In 1992, at age 19, I moved to the US by myself, legally on a 5-year Student Visa, from the Netherlands to study Film in Los Angeles. It was my lifelong dream to become a filmmaker, after growing up on American classics like Sidney Lumet’s ‘Dog Day Afternoon,’ Terrence Malick’s ‘Badlands,’ John Schlessinger’s ‘Midnight Cowboy,’ Elia Kazan’s ‘East Of Eden,’ and just about everything by Martin Scorsese and particularly John Cassavetes. (In 2001 I ended up doing a 3 month John Cassavetes Film Retrospective at my job at The Laemmle Theatres in Santa Monica.)
It was really my father who inspired my love for a lot of American films, particularly the ones coming out of the New Hollywood of the 70s. It was also my father who initially piqued my interest in moving to the US, having told me his seafaring stories throughout my childhood, from the time he was a steward on the Holland-America line in the 50s and used to dock on the East Coast regularly and frequent the jazz clubs in New York.
By the time I watched ‘Fame’ in 1980, the original by Alan Parker, at the tender age of 7, dropped off at a movie theater by my father and picked up by him afterwards, (‘Fame’ was apparently not his thing, so he waited for me at a bar across the street,) I was already sold on the idea of art school, not having the slights idea what art really was of course, except for being naturally creative as any child is, but nothing about my mundane, working class neighborhood in the small town of Voorschoten and my rough and tumble class mates was good enough after that.
As a gender nonconforming lesbian, with no LGBTQ awareness nor LGBTQ role models, school just got worse every year the kids started showing more interest in the opposite sex, and I was increasingly left to my own devices, mainly writing at that time. By the time I was 13 my mind was made up, I was going to go to Film School in New York. I later changed my mind from New York to Los Angeles, figuring the weather would be easier on a poor film student, and in the Summer of 1992, at 19 years of age, after working odd jobs for 3 years in the Netherlands to save up enough money for the full-time, out-of-state tuition required for a Student Visa, I arrived by myself at LAX airport, and from there on checked into a hostel in Venice Beach.
Film had really been my escape from LGBTQ misunderstanding and bullying experienced throughout my youth and High School in the town of Leiden in the 1980s, as I realized much later on in Los Angeles. There was no gender identity and sexual orientation awareness growing up in the otherwise liberal Netherlands of the 80s, or at least not in my immediate surroundings, and any knowledge about anything LGBTQ was exclusively tied into the international AIDS crisis, which had also reached nearby Amsterdam, and so extremely negative and discriminatory.
Sex education taught in High School was exclusively geared towards heterosexual, heteronormative sex, with no mention of female pleasure nor consent, and purely for the purposes of procreation. In my mind the idea of becoming an artist was my only way out of my working class town and all of oppressive society at large.
I received a real Social Security number, along with real State Identification, a CA ID, because I was an international film student, legally entering from the Netherlands in 1992 at age 19, after enrolling at Los Angeles City College from abroad and having filed all my paperwork and paying all the fees up front, totaling some $15.000, and was allowed to work for pay on school campus only, as well as intern at film production companies in unpaid positions. The American Embassy in Amsterdam informed me that my Student Visa was extendable and could eventually lead to a Work Visa.
After attending the Film Program at school for a little less than two months I also got a work permit through a guy who forced me to marry him, a fellow film student a couple of years older than me, and I ended up working at the art house movie theater chain The Laemmle Theatres throughout the 1990s.
He adjusted my status from student to wife within 10 days we were married, which started all my trouble. I’d literally been in the US less than 4 months when my immigration nightmare began, even though I had a 5-year Visa, with extension possibilities, and so was well within my right to be here. It had been my intention to transfer to the UCLA Film Program after finishing the LACC Film Program.
I ended up attending LACC for 3 years, from 1992 through 1994, and dropping out before graduating, due to his incessant stalking of me, at school, at work and at the Youth Hostel in Venice Beach where I had lived throughout. He even followed me back to the Netherlands once. We were divorced within two years, in 1994, and just before the required immigration interview to lift my temporary status and adjust it towards Permanent Legal Residence and eventual US Citizenship. We had lived together for about two months, for immigration purposes, and consolidated our finances as was required, including my school tuition.
In 1994 I was technically still legal, as my 5 year Student Visa had not expired but I did not officially change my status back to student, which I had the right to do but did not know was necessary. And by eventually dropping out of school I violated the terms of my Student Visa. We had been married and divorced without consulting an immigration lawyer, I was purely pressured into marriage after he had sexually assaulted me, and my parents didn’t find out about my ordeal until years later. I had also not been out to them as a lesbian, since not really getting along with primarily my mother when still living at home.
He went on to become one of the screenwriters of the first ‘Fast and Furious’ (2001) in the film franchise. I wasn’t technically out as a lesbian in 1992 when I got married to him at age 19, him being 25 at the time, but I was definitely aware that I was only interested in women, and had had girlfriends before. I “officially” came out in late 1994, just weeks after my divorce. I was 21 by then.
Because marriage to a US Citizen is the only realistic way to become a Permanent Resident or Citizen, and because this was not allowed for LGBTQ immigrants prior to DOMA of 1996 being struck down in 2015, I fell “Out-Of-Status,” or became Undocumented.
By the time my Student Visa expired in 1997 DOMA had gone into effect. And of course same-sex marriage was never federally recognized in the US before that neither, and so also not as part of Family Law-based immigration sponsorships, effectively excluding LGBTQ foreigners from immigrating to the US prior to 2015.
And as if this isn’t enough, ironically my home country of the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage in 2001, and became home to many LGBTQ Americans waiting out DOMA there in exile with their Dutch spouses. There were so many American-Dutch couples living in the Netherlands during DOMA they became known as “love-exiles.”
So what it comes down to is this, if I had immigrated to the US post-DOMA I would have been fine.
My marriage to a straight guy, as someone who experiences themselves as basically a straight guy, was definitely forced on to me by a American heterosexual man who would not accept my identity, however obvious, as real and valid. I had looked androgynous throughout my life, was regularly “mistaken” for a guy, and dressed in exclusively male clothes since the age of 6. And even if I had been a refugee, and desperate to flee my home country, which I certainly was not as a legal Film Student from the Netherlands, I probably still would not have voluntarily given into opposite-sex marriage to a heterosexual guy.
As a person who experiences themselves as a straight guy I knew I could not possibly be in any sort of romantic and sexual relationship with another straight guy. The thought of this alone is psychological rape to me, while the actual relationship amounts to real rape of course.
My marriage was a Forced Mixed Orientation Immigration Marriage, and lasted less than two years, with me moving out of our apartment after less than two months and filing for a divorce immediately after. I was only coerced and intimidated into marrying him, and he walked away from the situation with only a divorce, while I became illegal.
Because I basically thought like a straight guy, even if not having a name for how I felt at the time, and not being able to claim I was a guy for fear of getting beaten up, I often couldn’t pick up if guys were sexually interested in me. I most likely gave off the wrong vibes to them myself by being cool with them, which of course I thought nothing of, but they took as sexual interest in them.
I figured all this out years, and several assaults, later. It was only then that I started becoming interested in women’s rights, since people perceived me as such, and only now do I relish the double sort of awareness I’ve acquired through living with a male gender and a female body.
What was once my burden has become my blessing in being an artist and being able to use this special awareness as artistic fuel. Even if I’m being perceived as a female artist, and treated as such, I have a different perception than many artists who are truly female, and I believe this shows in my art. Not to suggest it’s any better or worse than female artistry of course, just different.
I am currently in post-production of my feature documentary ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights: From International Film Student to Queer and Undocumented,’ about LGBTQ immigration exclusion policy history, and specifically my Film Student immigration journey as DOMA victim and victim of heterosexual male violence within that.
I am personally an advocate for immigration reform of the US immigration system from the current Family Law-based system to a Merit-based system, as is customary in Europe. As the US Constitution is founded on an Individual Rights principle, it should only follow that its’ immigration system also adheres to a principle of Individual Rights, which would be a Merit-based system.
I also qualify for US Citizenship through the Violence Against Women Act, (which was enacted just after my divorce in 1994,) and am working on legalization with an immigration lawyer.
I identify as Queer/Lesbian and Trans-Masculine/Gender Nonconforming. Socially that mostly translates into, I’m a Gender Nonconforming Lesbian. (I personally do not wish to transition.)
And for the record, I identify as female, and gender nonconforming, despite my male gender. My pronouns are: They/Them/Theirs.
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Gender Binary System notes (2016) (Original Article in its’ Entirety)
The Root Cause Of Misogyny, And The Necessity Of Free Will (Gender Binary System notes, part 1 of 7) (2016)
The Male And Female Brain, And “The Cause” Of Transgenderism(Gender Binary System notes, part 2 of 7) (2016)
The Reasons I Am Not Transitioning (Gender Binary System notes, part 3 of 7) (2016)
How My Gender Nonconforming Identity Affected My Legal Immigration Status (Gender Binary System notes, part 4 of 7) (2016)
My Pronouns: They/Them/Theirs (Gender Binary System notes, part 5 of 7) (2016)
On Looking Androgynous Throughout My Youth, While Also Being Gender Nonconforming (Gender Binary System notes, part 6 of 7)
The Gender-Binary System Was Created For Population Control And Slavery, Including Sex Slavery (Gender Binary System notes, part 7 of 7)
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My name is Gabriella Bregman, I am a Hollywood-based Writer, Filmmaker and Producer, currently in production of a Feature Documentary about LGBTQ US-Immigration Exclusion-Policy, including my personal story of US immigration discrimination during DOMA, (Defense Of Marriage Act, of 1996–2015,) titled ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights,’ through my film production company Bregman Films.
The 2001 John Cassavetes Film Retrospective ‘Gena and John: A Cassavetes Retrospective’ at the Laemmle Theatres in Los Angeles is a Bregman Films Production.
I am also the Founder of a Nonprofit Film Organization Queer Female Filmmakers Los Angeles — A Media Site & LA Film Mixers (2018.)
In 2018 I am publishing my story and essays in a book, titled ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights & Other Essays.’
I identify as a Gender Nonconforming Lesbian, “non-op” Trans-Masculine, and Bi-Racial, from the Netherlands, Los Angeles-based.
My pronouns are: they/them/theirs.
Please check out my other articles on LGBTQ- and Immigration Issues, the State of Women and LGBTQ People in Film, and Lesbian/Queer Film as well as Queer Female Sexuality and Gender Identity at medium.com/@gabriellabregman
A few titles:
Resume/FILM BIO: Gabriella Bregman (2018) (2018)
2018 Update on Documentary ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights’ (2018)
A Note on the State of Women in Film (2016)
A Few Notes On LGBTQ Filmmaking (2017)
Some Thoughts on the State of Lesbian Filmmaking in the US (part 1 of 5) (2018)
John Cassavetes Film Retrospective (2001) (2018)
On ‘Moonlight’ and the Subject of Positive Representation (2017)
My 2018 Oscar Pick for Best Picture (2018)
In Defense of Rationality (2018)
In Defense of Individual Rights (2018)
A Few Notes on US Immigration Exclusion Policies Towards Women- and LGBTQ Immigrants (2014)
The Root Cause Of Misogyny, And The Necessity Of Free Will (Gender Binary System notes, part 1 of 7) (2016)
The Male And Female Brain, And The “Cause” Of Transgenderism (Gender Binary System notes, part 2 of 7) (2016)
The Gender-Binary System Was Created For Population Control And Slavery, Including Sex Slavery (Gender Binary System notes, part 7 of 7)
All Articles Written by Gabriella Bregman (TM). All Pictures Owned by Gabriella Bregman (TM). All Rights Reserved (2018)
