Age-Change in the Netherlands

Emile Ratelband has a problem. Gin up your empathy, because you are going to feel his considerable pain.

A Dutch positivity guru, Ratelband is 69 years old. His problem is, he feels like he is 45. Clearly, being 45 would confer certain advantages on him. It would make it easier to get work-- no one wants to hire someone who is that old. And it will get him more hookups on Tinder. Somehow or other, young women are not flocking to a man who is 69.

For the record, I have no idea what a positivity guru is. I do not want to know. As for the obvious jokes about 69... keep them to yourself.

One obvious solution to his problem would be to lie on his Tinder profile. What harm could there be in that? And yet, if he is looking for work, and needs to present a proof of citizenship, his age will pop right out in the interviewer’s face. End of interview.

So, Ratelband has gone to court. To change his birth certificate. Specifically, to change the year of his birth. You might think that this is frivolous, having no basis in biological reality. You would be wrong. Ratelband’s physician has examined him and has concluded that he has the body of a 45 year old.

Thus, there is a biological basis for his belief. The same is apparently not true of those who go to Dutch courts to change their birth gender. Courts allow transsexuals to change their gender legally. On the basis, after all, of a belief. There is more biological evidence that Retelband is 45 than that Christopher is really Christine.

The Daily Mail has the compelling story:

A 69-year-old Dutch businessman is battling legally [to] reduce his age by 20 years so he can get more work and attract more women on Tinder.

Emile Ratelband argues that if transgender people are allowed to change sex, he should be allowed to change his date of birth because doctors said he has the body of a 45-year-old.

The positivity guru, a media personality in the Netherlands, is suing his local authority after they refused the amend his age on official documents.

Mr Ratelband's case has now gone to a court in the city of Arnhmen in the eastern Dutch province of Gelderland.

He was born on 11 March, 1949, but says he feels at least 20 years younger and wants to change his birth date to 11 March, 1969.

Mr Ratelband said: 'I have done a check-up and what does it show? My biological age is 45 years.

The best part is that the court is taking this all seriously. If you thought that American courts were strange, take a look at what is happening in the Dutch courtroom:

The judge said that he had some sympathy with Mr Ratelband as people could now change their gender which would once have been unthinkable.

But the court said there would be practical problems in allowing people to change their birth date and it would mean legally deleting part of their lives.

The judge asked Mr Ratelband about the status of his early years, from 1949 to 1969, if his official birth date was put back.

'For whom did your parents care in those years? Who was that little boy back then?,' the judge asked.

The judge might also have asked what would happen if they develop age-change surgery... if the medical profession discovers a way to reprogram your genes in order to reduce your age.

The contradiction is so blatant that the court did not notice it. If said parents had been caring for a little boy for all those years, and if said little boy decided to become a girl, whatever were the parents doing all those years?

Anyway, we are anxiously awaiting the judgments.