Netherlands Rally Behind 14-Year-Old Girl Beaten up for Not Revealing Her Gender

Frédérique, a 14-year-old girl from Amstelveen, close to the Dutch capital, has been send to hospital last Monday with a broken nose, a fractured jaw, missing teeth and several other grave injuries after having been harassed and beaten up by a 14-year-old boy demanding to know her gender.

Her father posted the account of the horrible attack in a post on social media platform Linkedin. “My daughter was walking through her neighbourhood, like all should be able to, when she was confronted with a boy around 14 years old asking ‘Are you a boy or a girl?’”. Frédérique responded saying it did not matter to which the boy, now shouting, repeated the question. Frédérique responded by saying she is who she is and that the same goes for the boy. Eventually she faced five boys, but staying put she said “I am who I am and you are allowed to be who you are”.

“The boy did not take it well”, continues her father, saying he started beating her up. “He broke her nose, her teeth, fractured her jaw, and left her severely injured”. According to Dutch Public Broadcaster NOS she temporarily lost consciousness but was helped by her friends who were with her and was able to call her dad, in panic and fear. She was raced to the hospital where they were told she might suffer from permanent brain injury, something, eventually, was excluded as a result from the attack. By the time of writing she has been send home from hospital and is recovering in the presence of her family. In her support, her father started the hashtag #jemagzijnwiejijwilzijn, Dutch for “you are allowed to be who you are”.

People on social media, both inside the country and abroad rallied in favour of the girl. Arjen Lubach, the Netherland’s most influence media personality said on Twitter that “Many famous Dutch people have already made their statements and usually I would refrain from adding any more. But, damn it, this is the saddest news of the month. Get well soon Frédérique”. Politicians have responded and condemned the vicious attack as well and radio station 538 has started a card campaign, calling upon the country to send cards of good wishes to the hero.

Amsterdam Police has started an investigation into the attack, saying LGBTQ+ related violence is a police priority. “This is an attack with such a possible background. We want to act accordingly when we say this is a priority for us”. On Wednesday, the police have arrested a 14-year-old boy, saying more arrests are possible to follow.

Frédérique’s father has said he is immensely proud of his daughter. Neither Frédérique nor her father are looking for revenge. “There is no place for anger or vengeance, what matters to Frédérique is that this does not happen to anyone else. Of course we find the behaviour of those boys unacceptable and of course we filed a report today. But as far as we are concerned, this does not have to be solved with a long prison sentence or something else weird. We really do not think this one guy got up that day for the purpose of assaulting someone who would not answer a stupid question. This stems from a certain intolerance and from poor information. It was a brief explosion that probably had something behind it. You have to investigate and treat the core issue.