Finland has reformed its transgender law to make the will of people the only requisite to legally change their gender.

The Nordic country voted in its national parliament in favour (113-69) of amending the existing law so that it no longer asks people to go through a medical process including psychiatric assessment. A medical certificate that demonstrates the person's sterility will also no longer needed to ask for a legal change in the civil register.

With the new text, self-declaration is enough to legally be declared a man or a woman.

The law was a “priority” of the legislature for the Prime Minister, Social Democrat Sanna Marin. She had promised that the law would be passed by September 2022.

Christian Democrats voted against

Among the parties who voted against are the Finns Party and the Christian Democratic Party, whose chair of the parliamentarian group, Päivi Räsänen, said: “If the concept of gender means identity instead of a population group, how can the rights of people belonging to the population group be promoted? Biological sex has formed the basis for equality laws, the purpose of which is to promote the status of women”.   

The core items of the new law are very similar to the very recent transgender laws passed in Spain and Scotland on 22 and 23 December 2022. The Netherlands is also in a process of debating such a law.