Samenvatting

Some people are born as men, but feel like a woman; some feel like both a man and a woman; and some feel neither man nor woman. Similarly, there are people who are born as women, but feel like a men, etcetera. For these people, their birth gender and gender identity do not (completely) correspond. The Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP) studied the lives of these so-called transgender persons. 459 transgender persons filled out an online questionnaire between September 2011 and April 2012. Half the respondents knew before the age of 10 that their gender identity did not correspond with their birth gender. Almost a third of the respondents are still (mainly) living in the closet. Negative reactions are quite common. And compared with the rest of the Dutch population, transgender persons are much more often declared unfit for work and suffer much more often from mental health problems.