“Natural Law” Arguments in the Finnish Parliamentary Debate on the Trans Act

This paper examines anti-gender politics in the Finnish parliamentary debate on the Act on Legal Recognition of Gender (295/2023) with particular attention given to the role of fundamentally theological Natural Law argumentation in political speeches. The long-awaited bill aimed to improve trans recognition and rights in Finland by separating the legal gender recognition process from medical examinations and treatments and by abolishing the requirement of sterilization embedded in the previous legislation. The bill faced significant opposition both within Parliament and from certain factions of civil society but ultimately gained the necessary votes in plenary session and entered into force in April 2023. The paper contributes to recent academic endeavors regarding the parliamentary process of renewing trans legislation in Finland by examining specific political configurations of anti-gender politics evident in the parliamentary debate. The study combines a range of critical discourse analytical (CDA) and conceptual analytical methods to analyze how the concept of Natural Law and its surrounding semantic fields operate within the discourse on gender. The analysis revealed both synergistic and conflicting roles of religious and naturalizing arguments in the meaning-making processes surrounding gender and trans people, and the concept of Natural Law emerged as a key discursive bridge between different political factions, as it was used almost synonymously with, or adjacent to, natural science–based arguments about biological sex categories determining both sex and gender. Explicitly religious arguments grounded in Natural Law and divine creation were predominantly employed by the far-right party True Finns (Perussuomalaiset), whereas the Christian Democrats (Kristillisdemokraatit) relied more heavily on pathologizing trans existence through medical and natural-scientific argumentation. The findings further indicate that naturalizing arguments converged discursively with some members of the Center Party (Keskusta) and the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) either by drawing on religious or pseudo-scientific articulations. This discursive convergence between the far-right, Christian Conservatives, and mainstream liberal and center-right political groups opens possibilities for potential political alliances with anti-gender actors and simultaneously legitimizes religious reasoning and forms of anti-intellectualism, thereby entrenching them within the structures of political decision-making in Finnish politics.