Left-wing parties want to protect trangeneders against discrimination in new bill

The D66, PvdA and GroenLinks wants the law to explicitly protect transgender- and intersex people against discrimination. D66 MP Vera Bergkamp, PvdA MP Keklik Yucel and GroenLinks MP Liesbeth van Tongeren submitted a legislative proposal to add that distinction to the law, the Telegraaf reports.

"With discrimination protection it should not matter whether people do or do not fit into the standard male-female image", Bergkamp said to the newspaper. According to her, these two groups face large amounts of discrimination - transgenders have a much higher than average unemployment rate, for example. Bergkamp finds it important that they are explicitly protected. "Our proposal provides recognition and and makes it explicit that we are on their side. We also assume that the law will contribute to more knowledge and understanding. Because unknown often means unloved."

This legislative proposal involves a amendment to the Act Equal Treatment. Currently this law mentions discrimination based on "gender" and "heterosexual or homosexual orientation". If the bill succeeds, the law will also mention "gender characteristics", "gender identity" and "gender experession".

There are about 85 thousand intersex people in the Netherlands. These are people born with a body that does not have strictly only male or female characteristics. For example, a woman born without a uterus or a man with an extra X chromosome. And there are about 50 thousand transgender Dutch - people who do not identify with the gender characteristics they were born with.