'Having children is like rain, as they say in our region': exploring refugees' reproductive agency.

Migrants with refugee backgrounds in the Netherlands face significant reproductive health challenges, including higher rates of unintended pregnancies and limited access to contraception. This study explores how post-migration realities affect the reproductive agency of refugees from Afghanistan, Somalia, Eritrea and Syria. Utilising a participatory approach, eight peer researchers from these communities conducted eight focus-group discussions and 118 in-depth interviews, involving four migrant grassroots organisations and two Dutch non-governmental organisations.

A Life Course Perspective on the Sexual Development of Young Intersex People.

Previous research has indicated that intersex people face specific challenges in their sexual development, including uncertainties or confusion about their gender, a negative genital self-image, and hesitance to engage in romantic and sexual relationships. However, in-depth knowledge regarding a central period in this development, adolescence, is missing. In our qualitative study, we explore which factors influence the relational and sexual development of intersex youth and what elements contribute to positive development.

Working with young peer researchers in sexuality studies: benefits, challenges and lessons learnt.

Involvement as peer researchers provides young people with an opportunity to exercise their right to participation and can facilitate unique insights into young people's lives, social contexts, choices and negotiations. However, evidence on the approach has to date included little in-depth discussion on the complexities presented by sexuality research. Here, engaging young people as researchers is influenced by intersecting cultural discourses, particularly regarding youth agency and sexual freedom.

'Sex Is Not Just about Ovaries.' Youth Participatory Research on Sexuality Education in The Netherlands.

Young people are not satisfied with the sexuality education they receive in Dutch high schools. They rate their sexuality education as mediocre (5.8 on a scale of one to ten).

Navigating Identities: Subtle and Public Agency of Bicultural Gay Youth.

Young people who discover their sexual attraction to people of the same sex often go through a period of ambivalence or distress, especially when they grow up in an environment that condemns homosexuality. The Dutch sociopolitical context makes the expression of same-sex desires among those with non-Dutch roots even more complicated and risky, as prevailing schemes of interpretation render the two identities incompatible. This study explores the expressions of same-sex desires and identities as well as the different forms of agency of bicultural gay youth.

Sexual discourses and strategies among minority ethnic youth in the Netherlands.

This study explores the way minority ethnic youth in the Netherlands evaluate their sexual experiences, how they frame these experiences in different sexual discourses and how they deal with conflicts between different sexual discourses, both at home and in Dutch society. During 46 narrative interviews, Dutch young people (aged 12-22 years) from different minority ethnic communities shared their sexual histories and their dreams for the future relating to love and sexuality. Different sexual discourses can be identified in the language they used to describe their ideas and their experiences.