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This Master’s Thesis studies the multi-local family ties, transnational practices and social dynamics behind remittances in the context of Senegalese and Gambian migrants in Finland. Transnationalism refers to the ways migrants continue to be active in communities of origin, and thus participate in familial, social, economic, religious, political and cultural processes that span across national, geographic and cultural borders. This study focuses on transnationalism in the sphere of family life. Transnationalism is a central approach in contemporary international migration scholarship, and has gradually gained attention in the Finnish context. Migration in the West African countries of Senegal and Gambia is a common way of achieving socio-economic upward mobility and transnational practices of migrants are prevalent. The research questions of this Thesis are: 1) How family ties in Finland shape the transnational engagement of Senegambian migrants? and 2) How expectations of remittances shape the transnational family ties of Senegambian migrants, and how are remittances negotiated? In answering these questions the study draws from the theoretical orientation of transnationalism and the formulation of transnationalism as social spaces. In addition, concepts of relativizing and frontiering and an analytical framework of asymmetries in transnational relations are employed. The data of the study is gathered by conducting 12 semi-structured interviews with Senegalese and Gambian migrants residing in Finland, mapping the participants’ transnational relations and practices, ties and opportunities in Finland, and representations related to migration in Senegal and Gambia. The methods of qualitative analysis employed are thematic analysis and an analysis strategy of multiple case design. The findings show that the participants of the study are engaged in transnational practices that mostly locate themselves in the sphere of family life. At the same time, nearly all participants have family ties with Finns, which enables mobility and transnationalism, but at the same time attaches migrants to Finland in a way that also has implications for the transnational engagement. Migrants’ family and migration trajectories are shaped by different familial obligations and socio-economic opportunity structures in the different locations of the transnational social space. Transnational family ties are reproduced through communication and remittances, but due to high expectations of remittances, relationships are continuously negotiated. Remittances are shaped by cultural dynamics and norms associated with an ‘African family’ are reproduced, but also questioned. However, frustration in transnational relations can be better explained by examining spatial dynamics, and looking into the asymmetries within transnational relations. The study provides important sociological information on the role of transnationalism among migrant groups in Finland. It also shows the need for further study and to bridge the gap between research on transnational families and bi-cultural families.

People are internationally increasingly mobile which is why moving should be rather seen as a lifestyle than something exceptional and exotic as tourism research has traditionally viewed traveling. The new mobility paradigm in the tourism field in fact suggests that tourism should be seen as a part of everyday life. When people move more they are also in contact with more places. The new transnational research, that has predominantly been applied in migration studies, is interested in how mobile people form relationships with the different places that they have spent time in, in other words how they form a sense of place. Traditional migration studies has rather focused on how migrants settle in the new place, whereas the new transnational research is interested in how people can feel a belonging to many places at the same time, thus forming a so called multiple sense of self and perhaps feel at home in many places. Exchange students represent one very mobile group of people. The exchange students desire an international experience whereas nations, cities and educational institutions see the students as an important asset in their aims of internationalization. Branding Helsinki an attractive student city was the topic of a work shop meeting in Autumn 2012 held between The University of Helsinki and the City of Helsinki. The significance of exchange-students for this brand was also highlighted. In this study exchange students are understood as educational tourists, and they were studied from the perspective of the new mobility paradigm as well as the new transnational research. The perspective is fresh because the general experiences of exchange students have not been studied a lot, let alone their sense of place. The aim of this study was to examine the exchange students at The University of Helsinki in the semester of 2012-2013 if and what kind of sense of place they formed. Interesting was to examine whether they formed a strong sense of place because according to transnational theories acquiring a multiple sense of place is possible for mobile groups of people. The sense of place was defined through the concepts of emotional and functional attachment to place. The concepts were examined by analyzing how the students settled in Helsinki, if they felt at home, if they felt local and how they felt that the exchange affected their future mobility. Another aim of the study was to examine which specific aspects of Helsinki affected the sense of place of the students and to suggest how these findings could be of help in suggesting how to brand Helsinki an internationally attractive student city. As a method 25 semi structured interviews with exchange students between January and March of 2013 were performed. The method was suitable for this fresh topic because it allowed for the voice of the students to be heard. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using content analysis. The results show that the students were emotionally and functionally very attached to Helsinki. They settled in well, felt at home and identified many positive tangible and intangible aspects of the city. This argues for the fact that they had acquired a strong sense of place. The students experienced the city in the company of other people, but the individual experiences were important too. The students did however not feel like locals in the city. The study nevertheless proved that in order to acquire a strong sense of place, one does not have to feel local. The background theories demonstrate that also temporary residents and visitors can acquire a strong sense of place. The findings imply that acquiring a multiple sense of place (in their home country and Helsinki) is indeed possible. The fact that the students felt that they were living a mobile lifestyle now and in the future also speaks for a multiple sense of place. The results show that the exchange students appreciate the friendly Finns, the climate, the greenness of the city and the working society in Helsinki. Therefore this study suggests that these aspects should be used to brand Helsinki an internationally attractive student city in order to accomplish the internationalization aims of both the City of Helsinki and The University of Helsinki.

Major infrastructure projects have increased in East Africa during the past years. The main aim of these projects is usually to develop regional integration and provide growth potential for national economies. The investments are typically rationalised by improving local accessibility, diminution in transport costs and opening of economies to global markets. The sustainable development of transport networks in Global South is hindered by the network structures formed during colonial times which were not primely meant to increase general and equal regional development. Moreover, the post-monitoring and previous research have revealed that the socio-economic development expectations bestowed upon these projects have not often been realised and thus the viability of the major investments have become under scrutiny. Geography is concerned over spatial interaction and dynamics between regions, and therefore it has an established position in infrastructure related development research. Transport and development research has shifted its focus in the 21st century from the study of transport network development, rural development and mathematic cost-benefit modelling to the study of political frameworks in transport planning, which this study also represents. The case study of this research is the joint road construction project between Voi and Arusha by the Kenyan and Tanzanian governments which began in 2012 and is expected to be fully completed in 2018. More precisely the research is focused on the Taita Taveta County in Kenya. The research uses semi-structured interviews made in January and February 2016 to compare the development and impact expectations of local stakeholders to the environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) drafted regarding the project. A qualitative data analysis is conducted to the interview data which is complemented with field observations and previous literature. The results of the study indicate that the views and personal experiences of the local administration, county planners and other stakeholders differ from both each other and from the ESIA. The results also demonstrate that the ESIA was not able to predict all adverse impacts that has come up during the construction phase. Also, it did not take into consideration to various developmental threats expressed by the local administration. Especially problematic was seen the issues regarding sustainable infrastructure, land use planning, land ownership rights and the capacity of the local administration to respond to the challenges brought by the new road. The impacts of the improved road will be significant to the development of the county but their control needs attention. The conclusion is that transport planning in Kenya and in East Africa should be able to integrate more holistically with urban planning so that the expected development brought by the investments would be controlled. Moreover, the planning units of counties require adequate resources and capacity building to be able to respond to the indirect land use pressure emerged from the projects. The relationship between transport investments, socio-economic development and land use planning requires further research in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Tässä sukupuolentutkimuksen alan tutkielmassa analysoin, millä tavalla transsukupuolisista hahmoista kerrotaan 2000-luvun alun suomalaisessa kirjallisuudessa. Millaisia aiheita transhahmoihin yhdistetään ja miten heistä kerrotaan? Aiempi tutkimus (Detloff 2006, Bettcher 2014, Johnson 2016) osoittaa, että transsukupuolisuuteen liitetään usein lääketiedettä koskevia puhetapoja, ja transhahmojen kohtalot ovat usein traagisia. Tutkielmassani vertaan aineistostani löytyviä aiheita ja kerrontatapoja aiempiin tuloksiin. Aineistoni kattaa lyriikkaa ja salapoliisiromaaneja lukuun ottamatta kaikki Suomessa 2000-2016 julkaistut teokset, joissa on keskeinen transhahmo. Aineistooni kuuluu 11 romaania, yksi romaanitrilogia sekä tähän trilogiaan liittyvä novelli. Luen aineistoani yhdessä transtutkimuksen tutkimuskirjallisuuden kanssa. Metodinani on kirjallisuudentutkimus yhdistettynä sukupuolentutkimukseen ja transtutkimukseen. Esitän työssäni luentoja ja tulkintoja aineistostani ja käyn keskustelua alan aiemman tutkimuksen (esim. Prosser 1998, Wickman 2001, Detloff 2006, Johnson 2016) kanssa näistä tulkinnoista. Tutkimusaiheeni ja -menetelmäni on poliittinen, sillä teen tutkielmassani näkyväksi niitä normeja, joita kaunokirjallisissa teoksissa transihmisyydestä toistetaan. Luen teoksia sekä päähenkilön asemaan eläytyen, vastahankaan että konstruoimani cissukupuolisen, eli ei-transsukupuolisen, lukijan näkökulmasta. Esitän analyysini tulokset kolmessa luvussa, joista ensimmäinen käsittelee kaapista tulemisen narratiivia, toinen sukupuolidysforian representaatioita ja kolmas normeja teosten kerronnassa. Havainnoin, että kaapista tuleminen on osa transhahmojen tarinaa ja se usein etenee jo aiemmin teoretisoidun psykologisen mallin mukaan (esim. Klein et al. 2005). Moni transhahmo tulee lukijalle kaapista lääketieteen termejä käyttäen, minkä väitän vahvistavan transsukupuolisuuden liitettyä lääketieteellistä puhetapaa. Sama lääketieteellinen puhetapa näkyy myös sukupuolidysforian representaatioissa. Teokset kuvaavat sukupuolidysforiaa paljolti “väärä keho” -metaforaa käyttäen. Lopullisena ratkaisukeinona sukupuolidysforiaan esitetään lääketieteellinen, kirurginen hoito. Analysoin transhahmojen suhteita yhteisöjensä normeihin heteronormatiivisuuden ja maagisten hetkien käsitteiden avulla. Teoksissa transhahmojen mahdollinen heterous vaatii aina neuvottelua itsen ja yhteisön kanssa, sillä pääsy eri heterouden aspekteille (Rossi 2006) ei ole transhahmoille itsestään selvää. Maagisten hetkien käsitteellä Prosser (1998) tarkoittaa hetkiä, joissa omaelämäkerran transkertojan sukupuoli ikään kuin kääntyy. Sovellan käsitettä kaunokirjallisuuteen ja kehitän sille alakäsitteen ‘käänteinen maaginen hetki’, joka kuvaa tilannetta, jossa transhahmon sukupuoli “kääntyy” ulkopuolisen toimijan vaikutuksesta. Maagiset hetket vievät teosten juonia eteenpäin. Aineistossani transhahmojen esittämiseen käytetään erilaisia kerronnallisia tapoja, mutta teoksista on tunnistettavissa yhteisiä elementtejä, kuten medikalisoiva puhetapa, kaapista tulemisen kertomuksen eteneminen vaiheittain, dysforian kuvaus “väärä keho” -metaforaa käyttäen sekä konfliktit tai neuvottelut heteronormatiivisuuden kanssa.

Objectives. The gender identity of a transgender person does not align with the sex assigned to them at birth. Transgender adolescents experience, on average, more mental health issues compared to their cisgender peers, at least partly because of the discrepancy between their gender identity and the sex assigned to them at birth. Hence, many trans adolescents want to access gender-affirming treatment. To gain access, one must go through a gender identity assessment period. The psychologist's evaluation as part of the assessment aims to address whether the adolescent’s developmental stage and psychological resources are sufficient for progressing in the gender-affirming process, but the weight of the psychologist's assessment in decision-making has not been examined. Successful gender-affirming treatments, such as hormone replacement therapy, can reduce mental health issues in transgender adolescents and improve their quality of life, but there is limited research evidence on the impact of hormone replacement therapy on general well-being. The primary objective of this study is to investigate whether the psychologist's recommendation influences the decisions made by the multidisciplinary team regarding the progression of transgender adolescents in the gender-affirming process. The second objective is to examine how the psychological well-being of adolescents evolves during the first two years of hormone therapy. Methods. The study sample (n = 128) consists of all the individuals whose psychologist's evaluation, as part of the HUS adolescent psychiatry gender identity assessment period, was completed between 2017 and 2022. A portion of the data was collected in spring 2022 as part of a previous master's thesis, and it was expanded for this study during the summer and fall of 2022. The impact of the psychologist's recommendation on team decisions was examined using logistic regression analysis, and the statistical differences were assessed using the chi-square test. Demographic variables and well-being during the assessment period were examined using descriptive statistics. The influence of comorbidities and psychiatric history on well-being progression was examined using ordinal regression. Results and conclusions. The psychologist's evaluation is strongly associated with the team's decision, although there was not complete unanimity between the team and the psychologist. Differences mostly occurred in situations where the psychologist identified obstacles to progression, but the team decided to recommend hormone therapy. Most of the transgender adolescents showed positive change in well-being, either improving or maintaining neutral or good well-being. Adolescents with more severe symptoms, a history of self-harm, and/or various psychiatric issues appeared to benefit the most from hormone therapy. Going forward, psychological well-being during hormone therapy should be closely monitored, and practices related to it should be standardized in collaboration with adolescent psychiatry, adolescent gynaecology, and transgender services for adults.

The context of corporate transactions necessitates mechanisms of risk allocation that allow acquirors and sellers to allocate the inherent uncertainty in transactions according to their own risk preferences. A key tool for managing the deal risk is the “Material Adverse Change” clause (MAC clause) that has been developed in the Anglo-American legal environment. Drafted as a conditions precedent, it grants the acquiror the option of walking away from the deal if a change that is sufficient to trigger the clause occurs. Because of its origin in the Anglo-American common law, this thesis analyses the clause as a legal transplant, which concerns the situation when the original function and meaning of a legal concept might change when it interacts with a new legal environment. Ignoring the differences between the legal systems when transplanting a contractual mechanism to a new environment might result in a misguided expectation that the clause operates as in the original legal system. The research aims to demonstrate the Finnish court’s readiness to interpret the MAC clause as a formulation of the parties’ intentions, and whether the interpretation reflects the negotiated risk allocation, preserving the clause’s economic purpose. More specifically, the thesis asks whether Finnish parties can use the MAC clause to allocate the deal risk in their transaction to the same extent as Anglo-American practitioners, and whether the drafting practice of including the MAC clause fulfils the parties’ strategic objectives with similar efficiency. Because of the multilateral aims, this thesis interweaves several approaches. The main sources for the legal dogmatic argumentation are Finnish and Nordic. While the thesis remains a legal dogmatic study that systemizes the MAC clause solely in the Finnish contract law, the thesis utilizes several foreign legal sources, primary Anglo-American, why elements from comparative legal research are used. Moreover, viewing the MAC clause as a functional tool for ex-ante risk allocation illuminates its economic purpose, why the thesis also weighs arguments from the field of law and economics. The comparative elements and viewpoints from law and economics strengthen the legal dogmatic analysis. From a legal perspective of transaction agreements, the MAC clause is directly related to the juxtaposition between the doctrines of changed circumstances and the sanctity of contract. Apparent differences exist in how Anglo-American and Nordic contract law respectively approach the justification of deviating from the sanctity of contract for the purpose of upholding a flexibility towards changes in contractual circumstances. Contracts in the Anglo-American legal culture are deemed more as technical tools for risk allocation rather than as fair and balanced systemizations of the parties rights and obligations. In agreements between commercial parties however, both legal systems are very reluctant to find exceptions to the sanctity of contract, which incentivizes parties to include flexibility to their contracts. The thesis identifies four main functions of the MAC clause. First, it shifts the deal risk of changed circumstances from the buyer to the seller and allows for decreased information asymmetries. Secondly and thirdly, the MAC clause’s function is described with the symmetry and investment theories. Lastly, the clause has a function in renegotiations and creates renegotiation leverage. In Anglo-American case law, the MAC clause has been interpreted strictly. The courts have adopted a fact specific approach in interpretation that emphasizes extrinsic evidence, required that the adverse change is viewed from a long-term perspective, and restricted the MAC clause only to be applicable on unknown events. It is argued that based on the general principles and theories of contract interpretation in the Finnish courts, termination of a transaction agreement pursuant to the MAC clause would be possible on less strict grounds than termination under the contract doctrines of changed circumstances. The MAC clause thus reaches its minimum threshold for when it can be considered impact the agreement. The thesis argues that including the MAC clause as conditions precedent to the transaction agreement is a clear indication that the parties prefer to deviate from the contract doctrines. The economic functions of the MAC clause are argued to have evident effects on the negotiation and transaction dynamics. The conclusion is reached that the MAC clause, when transplanted from the Anglo-American common law, preserves the economic purpose and reflects the parties’ negotiated risk allocation in transaction agreements governed by Finnish law.

Greenhouse gases are essential in controlling the surface temperature of the Earth. Methane is one of the most abundant greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. it has an important role in the atmospheric chemical processes, and its atmospheric concentration has increased dramatically from pre-industrial time. In 2006, studies revealed that terrestrial plants are capable of emitting methane under aerobic conditions which led to the conclusion that the contribution of forests to the global methane budget needs to be considered. In my thesis the aim was to assess the capacity of boreal tree stems to transport methane, to quantify the radial diffusivity of methane in the stem of different tree species and evaluate the effects of various factors on regulating stem gas transport. Gas transport of Scots pines (Pinus sylvestris) and Birches (Betula pubescens) tree stems were examined in the laboratory under controlled conditions. The results highlighted that birch stem samples have a higher methane stem fluxes compared to pine samples. The result also indicated that birches accumulated less methane inside the stem compare with pine samples. One of the most significant findings from this study is that birch stem samples have the higher average methane and carbon dioxide diffusivity compared to pine samples. This finding also explains the smaller accumulated methane gas inside the birch stems compared to pine stems. Also, the differences in the diffusivity may result from differences in the anatomical composition of these tree species, including heartwood, sapwood, bark tissue and lenticel densities.

The effects of public capital on economic growth have been widely examined in empirical studies during the past few decades. This thesis analyses the dynamic effects of transport infrastructure capital, a subgroup of public capital, in Finland on two levels of geographic hierarchy. Using both national and regional dimensions in the analysis allows the evaluation of the spillover effects that public investments in transport infrastructure are suggested to produce according to earlier literature. In this thesis, the impact of transport infrastructure capital on regional growth is studied within the multivariate time series framework. The important issues of the non-stationarity of the data and the existence of cointegrating relationships among variables in the long-run can be accounted for by using vector autoregressive (VAR) models. Moreover, the VAR approach does not impose any causal links between the variables a priori. This is particularly important in the context of this thesis since it is plausible to assume that shocks hitting output affect public capital spending and, therefore, also the level of transport infrastructure capital stock. For the estimation of direct transport infrastructure capital effects with the VAR approach four variables are used: the real gross domestic output produced, employment in number of workers, the net private non-residential capital stock, and the net transport infrastructure capital stock. All the series are for the period 1975—2004 and in year 2000 prices. In addition, for the purpose of evaluating the spillover effects, I estimate so-called effective transport infrastructure capital stock series that consist of inside-region and outside-region capital stocks for each region. The main empirical results of this thesis are based on the impulse response functions associated to the VARs estimated for Finland as a whole and for each Finnish region. The empirical results suggest that in Finland and in the majority of regions, the effects of transport infrastructure capital are negative. The negative responses of all other variables to a shock to the transport infrastructure capital variable indicate that private sector variables are substitutes to transport infrastructure capital. On regional level the estimated long-run elasticities are in general lower than the national level elasticities, implying the existence of negative spillover effects. My empirical results are in part contradictory to many previous studies, yet the response patterns are explicable in terms of economic theory. Assuming that the neoclassical production function is a valid representation of the relationship between the variables used, my results suggest that the marginal productivity of transport infrastructure capital is negative, which in turn implies that the transport infrastructure to output ratio is beyond its optimal level in most parts of Finland.

South Africa as a country has been portrayed as an exception when it comes to protecting LGBT rights in Africa. In previous research on South Africa, sexuality, gender and race have been found to be crucial components of oppressive structures. However, the discursive practices and sedimented orders governing queerness, a substructure of normative sexuality and gender, have not been thoroughly examined. In this thesis it was questioned, how queerness has been made governable in South Africa through time. An additional centre of interest was to examine, how an influential non-profit organisation Gender DynamiX has recently tried to these orders. The thesis contributes to the efforts of queering development. Informed by intersectional feminism, Africana womanism, queer theory, post-colonialism, as well as Critical Discourse Analysis and Qualitative Content Analysis, the orders of discourse governing South queerness, as well as Gender DynamiX’s dominant discursive practices to change these orders, were analysed. The material analysed in the thesis consisted mainly of academic literature, and publications that the organisation has produced independently or in co-operation with other actors It was found that the historically moulded orders of discourse governing the field of South African queerness, a discursive substructure addressing deviance from the hegemonic South African system of normative sexuality and gender, is being produced and reproduced in contemporary South African society. These discriminatory orders of discourse have been made to support the colonial enterprise, the white apartheid state, and more recently black and religious identity politics. Thus, various actors have discriminatorily used queerness in a utilitarian manner to demarcate a line between us and them, between natural and unnatural, godly and ungodly, and more contemporarily the ones who tolerate and ones to be tolerated. However, it was found that these orders of discourse have been under transformation since the end of apartheid and the birth of the democratic nation. The discursive practices of gay and lesbian activists were crucial in changing these orders of queerness, and there has been some success in institutionalising and popularising the rights of sexual minorities. However, the issue of trans and gender non-conforming rights remains largely neglected in these moderately changed orders of queerness. Additionally, in the case study it was found that Gender DynamiX has pursued to affect these orders of discourse with an attuned and innovative discursive practice. More concretely, it has pursued to present especially racialised queers as active knowing subjects in different ways. This innovative discursive practice has the potential in dismantling the racialised hierarchical system of orders of normative sexuality and gender and the utilitarian orders that govern queerness in South Africa. More research on the development of Gender Dynamix’s discursive practice and the orders of queerness in South Africa would be beneficial to conduct.

Tarkastelen tutkielmassani millaisia transsukupuolisuuden positioita muodostuu erilaisten materiaalis- diskursiivisten käytäntöjen kautta. Analyysini kohteena on transsukupuolisuuden ontologia 1800-luvulta nykypäiviin saakka. Materiaalis-diskursiivisuus on fyysikko ja filosofi Karen Baradin toimijuusrealismin teoriaan kuuluva käsite. Toimijuusrealismissa todellisuus muodostuu aina sekä diskursiivisista että materiaalisista tekijöistä ja siten teoria asettuu osaksi materiaalista feminismiä. Lisäksi sovellan filosofi Michael Foucault'n historiantutkimuksen genealogiaa, jonka avulla tarkastelen transsukupuolisuuden muotoutumista osana kulloinkin vallinnutta historiallista viitekehystä. Lähestyn transsukupuolisuutta analysoimissani teksteissä rakentuvana, historiasidonnaisena positiona. Tarkastelen myös teksteissä syntyviä asiantuntijuuspositioita sekä laajemmin tieteen asemaa tiedon tuottajana. Hyödynnän sosiologi Thomas F. Gierynin rajanvetotyön käsitettä käsitellessäni transsukupuolisuutta koskevaa asiantuntijapuhetta. Tämä tutkielma jakautuu kolmeen osaan. Ensin tarkastelen transsukupuolisuuden muotoutumista biotieteellisissä ja psykologisissa teorioissa 1800-luvun lopulta 1900-luvun puoliväliin saakka. Sitten käsittelen transsukupuolisuuden merkityksiä feminismissä ja queerteorioissa. Lopuksi luen keskustelua transsukupuolisten asemasta tämän päivän Suomessa. Viimeisessä luvussa huomioni kiinnittyy muun muassa ajankohtaiseen keskusteluun transsukupuolisten sterilisaatiovaatimuksesta. Aineistokseni on valikoitunut transsukupuolisuuden historian kannalta merkittäviä lääketieteellisiä kirjoituksia, queer- ja transtutkimuksen piirissä tuotettuja tekstejä sekä ajankohtaisia uutisia ja kannanottoja liittyen transsukupuolisten asemaan Suomessa. Esitän, että transsukupuolisuus muotoutuu aina suhteessa aikansa käsityksiin sukupuolesta. Transsukupuolisuuden historia länsimaissa juontuu inversiosta, jossa yhdistyivät epänormatiivinen sukupuoli ja seksuaalisuus. Sukupuolen ja seksuaalisuuden rajankäynti onkin merkittävä osa transsukupuolisuuteen liitettyjä merkityksiä myös tänä päivänä. Lisäksi esitän, että biotieteelliset teoriat transsukupuolisuudesta toimivat myös poliittisina välineinä, joiden avulla argumentoidaan transsukupuolisten oikeuksien puolesta. Biotieteiden ja feminismin piirissä muotoutuu erilaisia transsukupuolisuuden positioita ja erilaisia näkemyksiä muun muassa transsukupuolisuuden syistä. Tarkastelen biotieteiden ja feminististen teorioiden rajankäyntiä ja vuorovaikutusta. Esitän, että Suomen transsukupuolisten hoitojärjestelmä ja siihen kuuluva sterilisaatiovaatimus pitävät sisällään merkityksiä, jotka juontuvat varhaisista sukupuoli-identiteettiä käsittelevistä teorioista. Analysoin transsukupuolisten sterilisaatiota Foucault'n biopolitiikan avulla, joka viittaa valtion harjoittamaan elämän hallintaan.