This story is partly based on a questionnaire about transgender care that NOS Stories distributed. This was completed by 711 people who say that their gender identity does not (completely) match their birth gender. It is a group with diverse gender identities. 283 of these people say they are currently on the waiting list for medical or psychological help in transgender care. And 150 people said they are currently undergoing treatment.
Thanks to the questionnaire, we were able to collect the stories of a large group of transgender young people, some of whom are on the waiting list and/or talked about self-medication. We have recorded their struggles and presented them to various experts. This is not a representative study, but figures from an earlier survey by the patient organization Transvisie did support our findings. Experts, such as doctors from various gender clinics, also recognize the picture.
NB: In an earlier version of this article we used a number of percentages in the paragraph about psychological complaints. Because this inadvertently suggests that we have conducted a representative study, this has been adjusted.