Some Thoughts on the State of Lesbian Filmmaking in the US (part 4 of 5)
The Crucial Importance of Trans-/ Gender Nonconforming Visibility and Representation In My Youth
To read all 5 parts of the article, click on the links below:
Some Thoughts on the State of Lesbian Filmmaking in the US (part 1 of 5) INTRO (2018)
Some Thoughts on the State of Lesbian Filmmaking in the US (part 2 of 5)(2018)
Some Thoughts on the State of Lesbian Filmmaking in the US (part 3 of 5) LGBTQ FILMS/ INFLUENCES (2018)
Some Thoughts on the State of Lesbian Filmmaking in the US (part 5 of 5) CONCLUSION (2018)
Or read the article in its’ entirely by clicking on the link below:
Some Thoughts on the State of Lesbian Filmmaking in the US (part 1–5) (2018) (Original Article in its’ Entirety.)
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THE CRUCIAL IMPORTANCE OF TRANS-/ GENDER NONCONFORMING VISIBILITY AND REPRESENTATION IN MY YOUTH.
Growing up in the Netherlands in the 80s, particularly with the international AIDS crisis looming large, my sexual orientation and gender identity were at best erased and at worst vilified, and having been shunned and bullied all throughout High School, even in the liberal Netherlands, was paramount to my applying to go to Film School in Los Angeles on a Student Visa at age 19 in 1992, by myself and knowing absolutely no one in the US.
I naively thought that once I’d get to Hollywood all my problems would be over and I’d finally get to live the life I’d always imagined in my head. A real artist, a writer and a filmmaker, with a cool muscle car, blasting some Jim Morrison, and a nice little pad with a writer’s room and a panoramic view over LA, and a passionate love life and a solid little artist community of good friends.
Upon arrival I figured I’d buy a 16mm film camera and shoot some low-budget films with my friends and myself in it, and a guest role for my cool car and all. I had just seen Oliver Stone’s ‘The Doors’ as well, which came out in 1991, just one year before I’d get here.
And so I had it all figured out in my head. I did in fact buy a Super 8 camera and a typewriter the very month of my arrival, July ’92, right in the aftermath of the LA riots, at a pawnshop in Santa Monica, and moved into a hostel in Venice, right on the beach and a few blocks away from the Jim Morrison apartments on Windward Ave. And I did have a view of the ocean and was ecstatic. I went to film school, even if I got forced into an opposite-sex marriage by a fellow film student, (the later co-writer of the original ‘Fast and Furious,’) and I did become the artist I had always wanted to be.
I felt at home immediately, and I still do. And whenever I’d be outside of LA I feared losing my artist identity, I actually still feel that way today. And I do own all of my current film equipment, and even bought my muscle car eventually as well.
But man, was I wrong. Not only was Hollywood itself still completely anti-LGBTQ, and would heteronormative society oppress me here like anywhere else, I was also up against a solidly anti-LGBTQ US immigration system.
Both DOMA of 1996 and the HIV travel ban, lifted in 1990, are comparable to today’s Muslim travel bans, and have a place in a long line of exclusion policies in the US immigration system.
(“Sexual deviancy” laws, “public charge/anti-prostitution” laws, anti-Chinese laws, anti-Eastern European laws, and more, and of course its’ root in the Transatlantic slave trade, and anti-women laws in general, as women were not seen as fully intellectual and capable human beings, just like Black people.)
And because I became undocumented, because of the combination of a forced opposite-sex marriage in 1992, and DOMA of 1996 offering me no way out to legalize myself through same-sex marriage, marriage being the only realistic option to gain legal permanent residence and US citizenship, I am still the perpetual outsider today.
(I qualify for legalization but with all kinds of hurdles because I fell “Out-Of-Status.”)
Throughout my youth I had to make do with “cool guys” for role models, James Dean, Robert De Niro, Jim Morrison, Jack Kerouac, John Lennon and John Cassavetes, who gets way more recognition in Europe than in the US by the way.
And so the artist identity became a substitute for my sexual orientation and gender identity, and the artist identity I sensed I could only successfully live out in Los Angeles, as a new independent film movement started to emerge in the early 90s, and I caught on immediately.
It wasn’t until Kimberly Peirce’s ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ in 1999 that I saw someone close to myself represented on the big screen and I started to make sense of my masculine gender identity. (With the exception of Lili Taylor’s portrayal of Valerie Solanas in Mary Harron’s ‘I Shot Andy Warhol’ from 1996 maybe. Not too flattering but I have to admit I saw a bit of my own reflection in that. And later Kate Moennig’s Shane McKutcheon on ‘The L Word,’ so anyone remotely representing me really came far and few in between.)
It would still take many years before I had a proper name for my particular gender identity, and after a few adjustments I settled on trans-masculine, gender nonconforming lesbian. I had come out as lesbian in 1994 but still felt that label alone didn’t completely fit me, even though I had liked girls and women all my life and had just acted on it, even if quietly and somewhat secretly, knowing I was met with resistance from my immediate surroundings.
But I had always just been living it, without being able to name it, and it had been the prime motivator for me becoming a writer and filmmaker to begin with. I felt different than people around me and my identity and desires were trampled on by society, and I desperately needed to be heard and seen.
It wasn’t until I heard about transgender children in 2011 through a Barbara Walters special I caught on YouTube, and something which would have never crossed my mind, the idea that children would be trans, that my whole childhood finally made sense to me, and I had revelation after revelation, putting all my experiences in proper perspective, all the tantrums over clothes and behavior, all the emanating of masculinity and searching for male role models, all the shunning and bullying from others, etc.
I actually worked at the Laemmle Theatres art house chain where ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ opened and I was a box office person. And it was actually Hillary Swank herself who suggested I’d see the film, when she came by to see another film shortly before the release of ‘Boys Don’t Cry,’ and and I’m forever grateful for that. She used to be a regular at the theater but after ‘Boys’ I never saw her again or else I would have thanked her in person.
Good thing I got to know the film’s director, Kimberly Peirce, eventually and got to thank her instead.
People started treating me differently after the success of ‘Boys Don’t Cry,’ for good and for bad, but I was finally seen. I finally existed as an individual.
And then, after the film came and went, and almost no other films with trans men or trans masculine people followed, I slowly faded into invisibility again.
People started misunderstanding me again, projecting female gender roles onto me, (and I say roles of course because these exact same gender roles are also projected falsely onto cis-gender women, and I believe gender is real but the roles are not,) or accused me of wanting to be a man, based on my clothes and hair and behavior, and the struggle started all over again.
And that is why it visibility and representation is so important, it literally saves our lives.
And so now, as an adult, with full awareness of my identity, and with creative experience, it is up to me to tell my own story, and hopefully in the process help some others see themselves as well.
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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)
