Published on July 2, 2025
NOS Nieuws
State Secretary Struycken of Legal Protection (NSC) has withdrawn the transgender law. The law had not yet been fully debated in the House of Representatives, but in April a majority called on the cabinet – for the second time – to withdraw the law. Struycken has responded to this repeated call.
Vulnerable young people benefit from care, not from removing the age limit and the expert statement.
The bill was intended, among other things, to simplify the procedure for changing the gender designation in a person’s passport. Anyone wishing to change this designation currently needs a statement from an expert. The bill would have abolished this requirement. Furthermore, according to the proposal, young people under the age of 16 would also be able to change their registration.
The proposal to repeal the law came from the SGP, JA21 and FvD parties. The governing parties NSC, PVV and BBB also voted in favour of it in April. A year earlier, a similar motion was passed by the House of Representatives. At the time, the call was directed at the then outgoing Rutte 4 cabinet, as no new cabinet had yet been formed.
Not controversial
After the current cabinet fell last month, the bill seemed to be declared “controversial” for a moment, but the SGP prevented this. That party was pushing for the transgender law to be repealed, and that is not possible if the subject is controversial.
The debate about the transgender law has been going on for years. The proposal was submitted in 2021 by then-Minister Dekker. The House of Representatives discussed it in September 2022, but after that little concrete progress was made for a long time. Now the proposal is completely off the table.
SGP MP Van Dijk is pleased with the withdrawal. ‘Vulnerable young people benefit from care, not from removing the age limit and the expert statement’, he said.
MP Westerveld of GroenLinks-PvdA calls the withdrawal unacceptable. ‘Discrimination, exclusion and violence against transgender people are increasing at an alarming rate,’ she says. ‘And now, of all times, this cabinet is adding fuel to the fire and causing regression.’