# Talk:Transgender history in Finland

This review is transcluded from Talk:Transgender history in Finland/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 12:54, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

 
I'll review this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 12:54, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
No images to review.  Earwig finds no issues; sources are reliable.
Spotchecks -- footnote numbers refer to this version:

FN 1 cites "In the following centuries, better information about transgender people became available, and treatments more common."  I assume "centuries" should be "decades"?  The source mentions Harry Benjamin in the US and Jan Wålinder in Sweden; I think it would be helpful to make it clear that this improvement in medical understanding was not specifically Finnish.
FN 1 cites "By the end of the 1980s, approximately 35 people had been operated on in Finland, a number much smaller than those of other European countries."  I think it would be best to rephrase this so that it doesn't imply Finland had one of the smallest numbers; only five other countries are named.
I'll do more spotchecks. I don't have access to Pimenoff and for some reason can't get to it via the Wikipedia Library.  Do you have an offline copy you could send me?  If so I'll email you so you can reply with it.
From a read-through:

The lead is rather long for such a short article.  WP:LEAD recommends one or two paragraphs for an article of this length.
"Uniformize" is a rather rare word; suggest "standardize", "regularize" or "normalize" instead.
"At the same time it posed a requirement that someone changing their gender be infertile, and may thus have made harder a process which had become relatively simple in the 1990s."  Suggest cutting "At the same time"; I don't think it gives the reader any more information.  "Pose" doesn't seem the right word -- it set or created a requirement; to "pose" has connotations of questioning or suggesting which we don't want here.  And why "may have"?  It's definitely an additional barrier.
"Criticism of the act became mainstream in the early 2010s": "mainstream" is an opinion; I had a look in the body of the article, and I don't see anything that would support this.  If no source can be found making this comment I think it would be safer just to list the most prominent critics, as you do already.
"also opposed the mandatory sterilization and not being married being a prerequisite for a change of gender marker": this isn't very fluently written.  How about "also criticized the act because it required mandatory sterilization and required applicants for a change-of-gender marker to be unmarried".
Suggest introducing the AFAB abbreviation in parentheses after you give the spelled-out version.
"Applications became more numerous when, in the 1980s, it became a prerequisite for gender-affirming surgery, and eventually also started to be granted." What does the last clause refer to?
"was deemed contrary to human rights": does "deemed" refer to a legal determination, or an opinion of some kind?
"Beginning with a 2010 campaign by Seta, reforming the Trans Act was increasingly demanded by it as well as Trasek and Amnesty."  Awkwardly phrased.  Perhaps "Demands for reforming the Trans Act began in 2010 with a campaign by Seta, followed by declarations [or whatever is supported by the source] by Trasek and Amnesty."
"This was however criticized as lacking because is did not afford self-determination to minors."  I would suggest attributing this to Seta (or Kupila) inline.
"The statement concerning transgender youth also passed." It's not clear what this refers to.  The previous paragraph mentions a statement about trans youth, but only in the context of a committee statement, not as part of a bill.
That's it for first pass. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 14:27, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

"was deemed contrary to human rights": does "deemed" refer to a legal determination, or an opinion of some kind? – not a legal determination. Neither source says exactly who said it broke the ECHR (Pimenoff: Moreover, the draft was not considered to be in accordance with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR), particularly articles 8, 6, 13, and 14 of the Convention.) I'd infer it was some participants in the public consultations, but it could just as well be criticism within the ministry, I suppose. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 19:52, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
My concern is that as phrased, without attribution, it reads as if this was a general opinion -- i.e. most participants in the discussion about it agreed on this point.  I just received your email and I see Pimenoff cites Scheinin for "heavy criticism"; do you have access to Scheinin?  That might well be the source. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 10:23, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
I don't have Scheining 1992, sadly. It's included in Rastas 1992, which does seem to exist in dead tree at several libraries in Finland, but nowhere I can get to. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 10:30, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
A pity.  Have you tried WP:RX?  They can get some pretty amazingly obscure things there.  I'll have a think about how to phrase this and come back to this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 10:48, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
Good idea; I'll give RX a shot! -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 10:52, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
OK -- in the meantime I think it would best to attribute this as "according to Pimenoff" or something similar; Pimenoff is at least reliable. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 13:01, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
Done. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 19:33, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
And yes, I can email you Pimenoff. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 20:05, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
I've copyedited the lead a bit and consolidated two of the paragraphs. It may still be a bit long, though. Thoughts? -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 21:10, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
I've emailed you for Pimenoff.  I think the lead could stand to lose a couple more sentences.  How about cutting "Drafting of..."?  That draft never made it into law so is less important for the lead.  Similarly mention of the Social Democrats' plans doesn't seem as important as the laws that were actually passed.  Have struck most points above and will read through again. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 10:12, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
From what I can tell, the government's (i. e. SDP) proposal is the one that went through. The initiative was started to address concerns (age limit) with the government proposal, which was then in its early stages, but ultimately it was the government proposal that went through, and not the initiative. Cf. [1]: Marinin hallitus ryhtyi uudistamaan lakia jo alkuvuodesta 2020, mutta korona jyräsi uudistustyön alleen pitkäksi aikaa. Tänään hallitus sai esityksensä valmiiksi. [Matin's government started to reform the law already in early 2020, but the coronavirus put a pause on the work for a long time. Today the government finished its proposal.] -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 10:43, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
More spotchecks:

FN 2 cites "The infertility caused by hormone therapy was still seen as sufficient sterilization. However, the act and decree also made it harder to get hormone therapy, requiring a psychiatrist's recommendation for a treatment which previously could be prescribed by a doctor unconnected to the transgender health system."  Can you narrow down the page range for the citations to Pimenoff, as you do for Järviö?  I had a quick look for the source for this but it's too long to scan easily.
FN 7 cites "In 2011 the Finnish equality commissioner said the infertility requirement breached human rights and should be immediately removed. In 2012, after a visit to Finland, the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muižnieks demanded that the provisions about infertility and being unmarried be removed."  You give a page range here; I tried using Google Translate but couldn't find the supporting text.  Can you point me at the right paragraph?
FN 11 cites "Panda Eriksson, former president of Trans ry, handed the initiative to Parliament on 17 September 2021."  I don't see support for the date here.  The article is datelined 22 September and says it will be handed over on the following Friday, but even if the dates matched this can't cite that it really did happen -- it might have been on a different day.  I had a quick look online for news sources for the actual date but couldn't find anything.  Also, the source says Eriksson is a former president of "Trans", not "Trans ry" -- is this an error in the source?
-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 13:17, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

I've added page numbers for Pimenoff.
I've made the page numbers more precise. The equality ombudsman is mentioned in the second paragraph of p. 21 (beginning Kuukausi ennen...), and the EU Commissioner is on p. 20, right under the heading (Kesäkuussa 2012...).
FN 11 – you're right; I must have mixed up my tenses when first reading that article. The organization is called Trans ry. The ry is an abbreviation showing it is a Registered association (Finland), similar to how companies could have LLC in their name. The ry is generally included when writing about the organization in Finnish since just Trans would be ambiguous. In Swedish it's disambiguated by writing föreningen Trans.
-- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 15:45, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for those page ranges; much easier to find.  I think one more small change is required; you have "unmarried" but the source, unless Google Translate is misleading me, says "celibacy" -- rather a different thing. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 12:05, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

The relevant word here is naimattomuus, which could be construed (as Google Translate seems to have) to mean celibacy, but in actuality does mean unmarriedness. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 18:07, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
That's good enough, then.  Passing GA; congratulations.  Would you be interested in doing GA reviews, by the way?  There's always a backlog, and we always need more reviewers. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 21:59, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
Thank you! I don't know if I have quite enough experience with GA to do reviews, but I'll consider it and maybe join in. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 16:20, 6 May 2023 (UTC)