ISBN: 9789090387512
Publisher: Uitgeverij het Haantje
Published: 2 September 2024
Length: 368 pages, paperback
Price: € 23.00
The book · Dutch edition
Gender Rebels
Critical stories for brave young women
Gender Rebels is the first feminist book for girls and mothers that addresses all the taboos of our time. Striking stories on online madness and self-diagnosis, the confusion around biological sex ("choose your own sex"), and women's oppression in Islam.
Young experts explain how the online world of fanfiction, girls and transgender people fits together, and how peer judgement contributes to stress and gender confusion. Detransitioners and queer women tell their story — including the violence of men who identify as trans.
The English edition Rebel Girls appears in 2026 from Spinifex Press.
Forty contributors
Forty girls and women from the Netherlands and abroad contributed to this anthology. Ten young women share personal experiences — and were photographed for it. Among the experts:
Liesbeth Woertman
Psychologist — on self-image and embodiment of young women.
Jolande Withuis
Biographer and sociologist — on the legacy of feminism.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Political scientist — on women's oppression in a religious context.
Riittakerttu Kaltiala
Finnish psychiatrist — on the explosion of adolescent girls in gender care.
Femke Lakerveld
Chair Vrij Links — on the disappearance of progressive values on the political left.
Detransitioners
Young women reversing their transition — speaking for the first time about what they have lost.
What the book covers
Online madness
Fanfiction, TikTok trends, self-diagnosis and how girls constantly compare themselves with others — and reject themselves.
Biological confusion
"Choose your own sex" — what that means for a growing girl who is still learning to know her own body.
Detransition
Women who step out of transition tell what led them there, and what has proven irreversible.
Women and religion
The oppression of women in Islam — a subject progressive Netherlands prefers not to discuss.
Men in women's spaces
Men who identify as trans and gain access to women's prisons, changing rooms and sports. The violence that results.
Positive sexuality
Love for yourself and your female anatomy as a basis for a healthy sex life.