Some people say:
You keep adding new letters.
Even if we have to go through the entire
alphabet to name everyone, we will.
That's inclusiveness.
Dear passengers...
We thought: Maybe we should
start an online platform...
...where the three of us
will answer questions.
The videos are aimed
at young trans people...
...to offer them a perspective
of a possible future.
But also the people around them.
So we can provide answers
in a safe space and in the way we like.
Instead of at the supermarket:
So you have a penis?
When does a person become cisgender,
and what does it mean?
'Cisgender' means that you identify
with the sex you were assigned at birth.
So your body matches how you feel.
If you consciously identify as cisgender,
you know there are more options.
You know that it's not necessarily normal
or the only way.
If you have a question
for one or all of us...
...leave a comment
or send us a PM and we'll reply.
Higher?
- Yes.
A lot of people consider it to be natural
that you're born a certain way.
You're born a man or a woman,
and your body is proof of that.
It's not strange that we think that way,
because that's what we're taught.
We learn it in school,
from a very early age.
It's how we're raised and socialized.
At home, by family and people around us.
On TV, we only see the heteronormative
image of men and women falling in love.
So then it becomes a fact of nature.
But when you look at the
historical context, it's not a fact at all.
It's a construct.
The problem is that for many
it has become the truth.
So it takes some strength, discomfort
and effort to detach yourself from it.
And action.
Hi, I'm Chris.
I'm one of the three Transketeers.
I'm a trans man, I was born a girl.
So the expectations are: female body,
woman, feminine, likes men.
For a long time
I tried to fit into that picture...
...but when I took an honest look at myself
I knew I wasn't that straight girl.
I much more feel like a boy.
We aim to make people move away
from rigid gender pigeonholing...
...towards a spectrum view.
I feel the binary a lot.
I'm someone who tries to not care about it
and who actually likes to rebel against it.
But at the gym, when I have to change
clothes I go to the women's locker room.
And every week, someone tells me
the gym also has a men's locker room.
Then I say:
Yes, I know.
So those are unpleasant experiences.
I won't even start
about going to the bathroom...
...because each time it's a confrontation.
People constantly ask me to categorize
myself as a man or a woman.
From a very young age
I knew I wasn't a woman.
But I thought: Okay, if I'm not a woman,
I have to be a man.
So I have to transition,
I have to tell my parents, take hormones...
...and reduce the development
of my breasts.
And then I thought: But I don't know
if I really want to be a man.
I had no idea there was something in
between. I simply thought I was crazy.
To me, my body is very masculine
when I feel that way.
And it's feminine when I feel feminine.
It's more about my intention.
As a performer, I enjoy using my body
as a means of protest.
Anything goes:
All colours, sizes and genders.
That's the story I want to tell
when I'm performing there in my thong.
For me "queer" is an umbrella term
that includes my own identity.
To me it means: not pigeonholing people.
Not thinking in "normative behavior".
I identify as trans non-binary.
I am transgender, and I do not see
myself as either male or female.
Queer is something I share with a cis lesbian woman, who could also be queer.
We can be part of the same community.
Despite of our differences
we can fight for the same cause.
What I like about the word queer is that it
makes you think outside your own label.
To think: What else is important?
Which other people are friends,
that I may have never met?
People that fight for the same cause.
Dear passengers, the intercity
to Amsterdam Central station...
...departing time 12:08
will terminate at Zaandam.
Hanne decided to go public
a few months before I did.
I saw all those posts on Facebook
and thought: This is great, I want this too.
Friends of mine had a boat at Pride
and I could join last minute.
I thought:
This is the moment to do this.
So I printed a T-shirt that said
'I was intersex' on the back.
I didn't dare to print it on the front.
But I joined the boat, and it was great.
Then I put it on Facebook, and thought:
Now everybody knows. That's it.
People ask me very intimate questions,
like what my genitals look like.
Every time I have to explain it,
because no one knows what it means.
We never learned in school
about intersex.
Doctors advised me to remove my testes
because they would become cancerous.
Later research has shown
that this isn't true.
They were removed when I was 17...
...so I'll need hormone therapy
for the rest of my life.
I was lucky, because
when I was 17 it was 2002.
So they did tell me I was intersex.
It was only in 2001 that the secrecy
protocol ended in the Netherlands.
So if I had been born one or two years
earlier, I would have had surgery...
...and they would have told my parents
but not me.
Now at least they tell people
at some point.
But they still advise you
to adjust as quickly as possible...
...through normalizing treatments
and surgery...
...but also psychological adjustment.
Gender manipulation, things like that.
It's not warm here, you guys.
- That's a porn set thing.
What do you mean?
They do it on every movie set.
You have two new tattoos.
- Something changed.
Right above the edge of the pants.
You want to see your belly button or not?
I mainly want to see my chest hair.
- Then we'll do it like this.
Up until July 2014,
there was a Dutch law...
...that said that if you wanted
to legally change your status...
...from 'F' to 'M' or vice versa, you had
to go through the entire medical process.
So that means hormone treatment
and sex reassignment surgery.
And that you had to be sterilized, so you
wouldn't be able to procreate anymore.
That was a requirement to legally change
your sex, which I thought was bizarre.
It's a human rights violation that you have
to be sterilized in order to do something.
Plus it didn't work for me,
because I really wanted to have a child.
At the time, people reacted in disbelief.
It was very complicated.
I didn't fit into the picture, which made
the process very heavy for me.
So I decided to get a mastectomy
outside the VU MC.
And to postpone my hormone treatment
until I had a child.
And do you have one?
- Yes, now I do.
Six months ago I gave birth,
so now I will start my hormone treatment.
Now I'm allowed
to change my identity papers.
But only after a psychologist's approval,
which is a bit complicated.
Now that I take hormones, I will do it.
Not because I have to have
an 'M' on my documents...
...but once I really start to look
and sound like a man...
...the 'F' could cause a lot of confusion
when I travel. So it's about safety.
And because I really want my daughter
to see me as her daddy.
Because that's who I am
and what I identify as.
But my documents will always say
I'm her mother, which feels very strange.
'A couple of operations, and bam: You
have a penis. That's really intense to me.'
First of all because it isn't true.
Only some sound things, and go for it.
- And remove the things you mentioned.
You want to be part of something
because you want to feel safe.
If you don't follow the norm,
it often means you're not safe.
You're positioned differently.
For instance, you're bullied at school
when you walk or talk the wrong way.
People can tell if there's something wrong
about your gender or sexual expression.
And you're punished for that.
So it's very hard
to be different from the norm.
We know that one of the causes of death
for trans people is religion.
So we also want to show a positive side
here in Amsterdam...
...by remembering murdered trans people
in this church.
We hope that this will send
a positive message.
I'm standing here.
My name is not on the list.
I was lucky enough.
For me, a Latina trans woman of colour,
the streets aren't safe anymore.
Can we learn
from non-Western societies?
Yes, I think we can learn a lot.
Especially about not naming,
categorizing or labelling things.
The West is obsessed with labelling and
naming things, while you can just let it be.
It's oppressive
that I have to call myself a lesbian.
And if I deviate from that, at some point
I'm not a lesbian and I'll betray the label.
But from a Curaçaoan
or Surinamese perspective...
...you just do your thing
and no one talks about it.
You live your life
and it doesn't concern me.
Isn't that great?
This is the Gay Krant
of December 2nd, 1989.
It's about writer Astrid Roemer.
In this interview, she talks about...
Let me see.
...how she doesn't want to label herself,
how she looks at homosexuality.
I know this is a matter of vocabulary,
phrasing and personal opinion.
I do not distance myself from lesbians, but emotionally i think differently about it.
When you assign people
a sexual orientation...
...you connect it to biological conditions.
Then it's innate, rigid.
It quickly becomes
something pathological.
But if you stress the relationships
based on choices people make...
...because they are in love
or pursue a certain lifestyle...
...it enters the sphere of life satisfaction...
...as an essential need
of free, healthy people.
You can't say:
That's innate, abnormal or pathological.
I really feel her way of thinking.
I feel it very strongly.
I think it's so cool she had
a debate with Audre Lorde.
Who explicitly wanted to name herself.
For me, the use of the label 'queer'
is a form of protest, after 'lesbian'.
Naming 'black' and 'queer'
signifies a certain emancipation to me.
But to me, it's not a label that's so fixed
that I can't step outside of it.
At home, in my bed, I'm not black
and queer. I'm just Naomie.
It's only when I leave the house that I
become black, queer, woman, et cetera.
Will we have millions of labels
or no labels at all?
If millions of labels means
including everyone, of course.
If no labels makes everybody happy, sure.
So I don't have the answer either.
Some people say:
You keep adding new letters.
Even if we have to go through the entire
alphabet to name everyone, we will.
That's inclusiveness.
It's about taking people along.
