Could you shed some light on what’s the Dutch queer scene like? I’ve only come across stuff for gay men and there has to be more than that. Also, how’s the acceptance of trans women. There’s some particularly nasty strains of transmisogyny that rear their head, especially in lesbian/wlw spaces, and I have little desire to subject myself to that. Anyway, any insights you might have are appreciated.

That’s not an easy question to answer. 

The mainstream Dutch LGBT scene is very much cis gay & lesbian dominated. It does not have a strong history of passionate TERFs the way the US and UK scene does and as a result the general attitude to trans people in mainstream LGBT places is not coherent. Even within the COC (the biggest LGBT group in the Netherlands) attitudes of local chapters vary from very transinclusive to obviously transphobic. 

Dutch radical queer women’s are heavily influenced by the German scene and as a result include quite a few TERFs, though they are not enough in number to really dominate the space. If you go to a feminist festival like the F Word festival, you will meet TERFS and you will meet a lot of ‘feminists’ who respond to TERFs with ‘let’s debate about this’ instead of ‘get out’. Yikes. 

The Netherlands has quite a lot of active trans groups and these too are quite diverse, from conservative to liberal to radical queers. With the exception of a few youth groups, most trans groups are run by transwomen so transmisogyny has little foothold there. One pretty great queer-trans festivals is the Beyond the Binary festival. Also, the TranScreen filmfestival is pretty queer and hosts quite a lot of queer movies and debates. 

Finally there is a very small scene of trans-queer activists within the Dutch anarchist/squatters scene. Sadly they mostly just organize parties but they have one recurring festival: Queeristan.