MEMBERS of the Finnish Parliament on Wednesday passed the new trans act by a vote of 113 for and 69 against.
The bill received the support of all lawmakers in attendance representing the Green League, Left Alliance, Social Democrats and Swedish People’s Party. Members of the Christian Democrats and Finns Party contrastively voted uniformly against the bill.
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The Centre and National Coalition were divided over the bill, with 13 of the former’s 25 and 10 of the latter’s 36 lawmakers voting against. Also opposing the bill were the one-member parliamentary groups of Movement Now and Power Belongs to the People.
Altogether 17 lawmakers were absent from the vote.
The trans act enables adults to change their legal gender marker with an application without a supporting statement from a physician, separates the processes of legal gender recognition and medical gender re-assignment, and does away with the sterilisation requirement imposed on people changing their gender marker.
The Finnish legislation has thus far stipulated that anyone changing their gender marker must prove that they have undergone sterilisation or that they are unable to reproduce for other reasons.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
