Talk:Transgender history in Finland

GA Review

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)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 17:36, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that there are records of transgender people in Finland since the 1800s with one case of a person in 1882 who was assigned female at birth, but identified as a male? Source: Parhi, Katariina. Boyish Mannerisms and Womanly Coquetry: Patients with the Diagnosis of Transvestitismus in the Helsinki Psychiatric Clinic in Finland, 1954–68. Medical History. 4 December 2017;62(1). doi:10.1017/mdh.2017.73.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Paleofauna of the Eocene Okanagan Highlands

Improved to Good Article status by Mike Christie (talk) and Maddy from Celeste (talk). Nominated by Onegreatjoke (talk) at 18:18, 8 May 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Transgender history in Finland; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

• Recent GA, so focusing on DYK-exclusive issues. Recentness (date) of the article confirmed. QPQ done. Hook is interesting and cited. All is GTG. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:17, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 21 November 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Elli (talk | contribs) 00:11, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

---

• History of transgender people in Finland → Transgender history in Finland
• History of transgender people in the United States → Transgender history in the United States
• History of transgender people in the United Kingdom → Transgender history in the United Kingdom

– Our main article on this topic is Transgender history and not History of transgender people, which is wordier. Google ngrams also shows that "transgender history in …" is used in the literature, while "history of transgender people in …" is not. Furthermore, I would argue that transgender history is more than just the history of transgender people, but also of political, cultural, etc. circumstances. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 10:19, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject LGBT studies has been notified of this discussion. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 10:19, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I understand the rationale behind this move, but my concern is that the pages appear to be structured around the previous name. How would they be expanded to more broader to about " political, cultural, etc. circumstances" of transgender people as put it?

Also, the "non-binary" and "intersex" sections of the UK article ("History of transgender people in the United Kingdom") should be split off into either Third gender#History (for the non-binary section) or Intersex people in history (for the intersex section). I guess I can understand why they are in that article, but... they would be better suited somewhere else, so the information is not lost. Historyday01 (talk) 16:41, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Concerning being structured around the current title, I see your point that a lot of the coverage is just about individual historical trans people. I don't think that's bad either, and it's natural that in past times, a lot of the information we have would be about individual cases rather than societal developments. I don't think this presents an obstacle to moving, however.

I agree that the "Intersex" section needs to go elsewhere, given that they are unrelated topics. But while individual non-binary individuals may choose not to identify as transgender, I maintain that non-binary history belongs firmly within the sphere of transgender history. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 17:02, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it necessarily poses an obstacle to moving either, I'm just saying that it may require additional research to fulfill the new name of each article. I'd be willing to pitch in a bit to help. So, surely, I support the name change. In terms of the second paragraph, I think you are right about the Intersex section. When it comes to the non-binary section, maybe some of it could be incorporated more into the general text, and/or some or all also moved to Non-binary gender#History (I was thinking of having a whole page dedicated to non-binary history, but I think that might be overkill, as there isn't that much there in the non-binary section, I just cited, right now) Historyday01 (talk) 00:47, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

• Support per Maddy's comments, WP:COMMONNAME, the fact we have Category:Transgender history, and because I'm about to publish Draft:Trans history in Brazil. Best,Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 21:07, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

  Also, we already have the naming convention LGBT history in XYZ that holds across all articles (I haven't seen a single page called History of LGBT people in XYZ), so having a different naming convention for trans history seems weird to me. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 16:46, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

 Note: History of transgender people in Brazil has now been moved to this title and should also be encompassed by this RM. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 16:04, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Tangential discussion on the use of "trans" vs "transgender" for the article about Brazil. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:40, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Additional note: It should also be "trans history in Brazil" not "transgender history in Brazil" - this was discussed at the LGBT Wikiproject Noticeboard here and the TLDR is "transgender" refers to a small percentage of trans people in Brazil, many of whom are Travesti (gender identity) and don't consider themselves "transgender". That's supported by the article's body and sources overwhelmingly. Best regards, Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 16:40, 24 November 2023 (UTC) Striking per my comment below, this can be discussed after this RM. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:40, 24 November 2023 (UTC) We strive for WP:consistent titling of articles and so the title has been made consistent with the other History of transgender people in X titles. So if there are more different parts in Brazil, they should be WP:Split from the main title into a related separate article. Transgender is the correct umbrella term in the English language, and this is the English Wikipedia, so we follow English language convention and Wikipedias rules and guidelines. As the main Travesti article clarifies in the terminology, the term predates the use of Transgender in the area, but is considered a regional equivalent in part - The use of the term travesti precedes that of "transgender" in the region and its differentiation from the notions of "transsexual" and "trans woman" is complex and can vary depending on the context, ranging from considering it a regional equivalent to a unique identity. Raladic (talk) 16:49, 24 November 2023 (UTC) @Raladic I don't mind the "history of" consistency/title format change pending this RM. I'm unclear what you mean by if there are more different parts in Brazil, they should be WP:Split from the main title into a related separate article though, could you please clarify? "Transgender" is in umbrella term in Western contexts, but in Brazil transgender people are only a small part of the larger trans umbrella - the title including "transgender" is a misnomer considering only a minority of trans people there call themselves transgender as most are travestis who explicitly reject the term and most of the sources (English, Portuguese, and Spanish) in the article likewise don't use "transgender" and/or explicitly say "trans" is the umbrella term in Brazil. "[history of travestis/travesti history] in Brazil" would be a more appropriate title than one with "transgender" but it would still be too narrow. I believe "transgender history/history of transgender" is appropriate for most articles we have, but this case is unique due to the considerations above. Best regards, Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 17:41, 24 November 2023 (UTC) I'm meaning that in this case if as you're saying there is a clear distinction (although it looks like it is blurry), then there should be two separate articles "History of Transgender people in Brazil", which talks about Transgender/Non-binary identities in Brazil and a separate one on "History of Travesti people in Brazil" that talks about that and they can link to each other as appropriate. Raladic (talk) 17:47, 24 November 2023 (UTC) This ignores the obvious connections between different trans people. What is the advantage of such a division? -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 18:11, 24 November 2023 (UTC) As I said, in the English language, "Transgender" is considered the umbrella term for Trans identities (whether it is Transgender itself, or non-binary or other non-AGAB identities) - refer to wikt:en:transgender and per WP:ENGLISHTITLE, it thus should be used (whereas "trans" is an abbreviation and per WP:TITLEFORMAT avoided), even for an article about Brazil, again because WP:CONSISTENT is also another policy that applies here. The article can still discuss that the term has different historical meaning in Brazil, but it is the term that English language readers of EN-wiki are looking for when they are looking for an article about Transgender History in different countries. Raladic (talk) 18:17, 24 November 2023 (UTC) As I said, in the English language, "Transgender" is considered the umbrella term for Trans identities – this is way too bold a statement. I've been reading lots of gender studies sources for Cisnormativity, and I'd say most use trans for this purpose. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 18:28, 24 November 2023 (UTC) I think we're somewhat going in circles (no worries since this question was also considered at eswiki and enwiki at the noticeboard and I myself grappled it with ages before choosing "trans" in the first place lol). I'm going to strike my above comment and propose we revisit whether "transgender" OR "trans" is the best title for the Brazilian article after this RM as it's a separate (if related) question. Best regards, Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:28, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

• Comment - The main problem I see with the proposed expansive meaning is where the line to the other series of Transgender Rights in … is drawn, since a lot of the things like political, healthcare and so on are already covered in those articles and by making the title here more encompassing, it also gets more ambiguous, that line will get blurrier and blurrier. Especially even looking at the different formats of the existing articles already. Raladic (talk) 16:29, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

  Sorry for the tangent above lol. For the record, I don't think that would be an issue as we already have the joint naming convention LGBT history in XYZ and LGBT rights in XYZ (and I think per WP:CONSISTENT/WP:COMMONTITLE that supports the moves especially since Transgender rights in XYZ is already a convention). To me, while they're closely related, the former tends to include culture and more of the backstory on how those rights came to be, while the latter tends to focus on the modern rights and less of the political struggles to get them (usually linking to the history article for that). This applies to the history/rights split for both "Transgender..." and "LGBT..." (though admittedly, the UK/US/Brazil articles follow that topical split more than the Finland article). Best regards, Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:51, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

  No problem about the discourse, I brought a summary linking to here back to the LGBT Studies board if you want to discuss further there.

  I think your point here is good, so as long as we could ensure that the Transgender history in X articles stay on the topic of the history and don't delve too far into the rights issues beyond the historical evolution, I suppose it makes sense for consistency with the Transgender rights in X series. Raladic (talk) 18:57, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks! I had an idea on backburner I think this is a good spark for: I'll create a table somewhere about the state of the various Transgender rights/history in X articles and post a link here or at the LGBT noticeboard shortly. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 19:55, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

• Support per discussion above for consistency, granted that we ensure that the Transgender history in X articles stay on topic to avoid overlap with the Transgender rights in X articles. Raladic (talk) 19:00, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.