Change of Legal Sex Registration

Since the Transgender Act of 1 July 2014, adults in the Netherlands have been able to change their sex registration in the Personal Records Database (BRP). To date, this requires a statement from an expert and an application to the civil registrar. In 2025, the government withdrew a bill that would have abolished the expert statement and introduced self-identification as the basis for registration; see the withdrawn self-identification bill. This page describes the current legal procedure and highlights several considerations that are often missing from mainstream information.

What does sex registration regulate?

Sex registration is the M or F designation in the BRP. At birth, this registration is based on observation of biological sex and is subsequently used as a legal reference point for passports, retirement age, medical screening (such as cervical cancer screening), CBS statistics and sex-based legislation, among other things. Registration therefore has not only a symbolic function, but also administrative and epidemiological consequences.

The current procedure (since 2014)

The procedure is laid down in Article 1:28 of the Civil Code and consists of the following steps:

• You apply for an expert statement from a designated psychologist or physician. This person declares that you are convinced that you belong to the other sex and that this conviction is expected to be enduring.
• You submit an application to the civil registrar of the municipality where you were born (or, if you were born abroad, to the municipality of The Hague).
• Once processed, a subsequent entry is added to the birth certificate and the BRP is updated.
• Identity documents are not renewed automatically; you must apply for a new passport or identity card yourself.

From the age of 16, young people can submit an application independently; for younger children, court proceedings are required.

Withdrawn bill: self-identification

In 2021, the government introduced a bill to abolish the expert statement and remove the age limit of 16. Changes would then be made through a simple declaration at the municipality, possibly with a short reflection period. The bill was controversial. In September 2023, the House of Representatives declared it controversial, and on 2 July 2025 the government announced that it would withdraw it. Critics — including legal experts, women's organisations and parts of the healthcare sector — pointed to the following issues:

• Loss of an independent assessment: the expert statement provides a minimum safeguard that the decision is well-considered and enduring. Without that assessment, legal registration would shift to pure self-declaration.
• Consequences for minors: removing the age limit affects a stage of life in which identity is undergoing significant change. Research (including Steensma 2013) shows that a considerable proportion of children with gender variance identify with their birth sex again after puberty.
• Risk of misuse: although the number of malicious applications is likely to be small, there would be no filter for situations in which the change is used strategically (for example, to gain access to sex-based facilities).

Consequences for statistics and sex registration

The more legal registrations are separated from biological sex, the less useful the BRP becomes for research in which sex is relevant: epidemiology, medical research, crime statistics, gender pay gap analysis and health screening. Statistics Netherlands (CBS) has pointed this out in its information materials. In some British and Scottish reports, it later emerged that crime statistics had been distorted because suspects were registered based on self-declared gender. Transparently separating legal gender and biological sex in datasets is an issue that has received little attention so far in the Dutch debate. How calls for less sex registration affect women's statistics is discussed on genderbeleid.nl, in the article about Atria's toolkit against sex registration.

Consequences for sex-based facilities

A changed sex registration has legal implications for access to women's shelters, prison placement, sports categories and medical screening programmes. The implications of self-identification for access to women's spaces are explained on vrouwenruimtes.nl, in the article on self-identification and safety. In the United Kingdom and the United States, several cases are known in which such access created tensions with the safety or fairness of existing facilities. In the Netherlands, little systematic research has yet been conducted on this issue; supporters of self-identification consider the risk limited, while critics point out that a lack of data is not the same as the absence of a problem.

Practical consequences of a change

• Identity documents (passport, driving licence, identity card) must be renewed separately.
• Diplomas and official documents issued previously remain unchanged, unless the institution has a correction procedure.
• Medical registrations (such as invitations for population screening programmes) are processed through the BRP and may no longer correspond to biological sex after a change.
• Your name does not change automatically; this is a separate procedure. See Changing your name.