That’s not enough for Emile Ratelband, a 69-year-old who feels like he’s in his 40s. The Dutch pensioner is asking a court in his hometown of Arnhem, southeast of Amsterdam, to change his birth certificate so that it says he took his first breath on March 11, 1969, rather than on March 11, 1949. The judges heard his case on Monday and promised they would render a verdict in the next several weeks.
Ratelband sees his request as no different from a petition to change his name or the gender he was assigned at birth ‐ and isn’t bothered that this comparison might offend transgender people, whose medical needs have been recognized by the American Medical Association. It comes down to free will, he maintains.
"Because nowadays, in Europe and in the United States, we are free people," he said in an interview with The Washington Post. "We can make our own decisions if we want to change our name, or if we want to change our gender. So I want to change my age. My feeling about my body and about my mind is that I’m about 40 or 45."
Being in his 40s would make his life much better, he explained.
For one, it would boost his dating prospects. "If you’re 69 on Tinder, you’re outdated," reasoned Ratelband, who has seven children and is now without a partner. His friends urge him just to modify his age on dating apps. "But I don’t want to lie," he said. "If you lie, you have to remember everything you say."