sukupuolessa

Sukupuolessa is the inessive singular form of the Finnish noun sukupuoli, meaning “in gender” or “in sex.” In Finnish grammar, the inessive case expresses location inside something, roughly equivalent to “in” in English. Thus sukupuolessa literally conveys the idea of being within the category of gender or sex, and is used when a statement concerns that domain.

The base word sukupuoli refers to both biological sex and social gender, depending on context. In everyday language the distinction between biological sex and gender identity is often conveyed with additional phrasing, for example by using terms like biologinen sukupuoli or sosiaalinen sukupuoli. The form sukupuolessa appears in sentences where the discussion takes place within the realm of gender/sex, and its plural form is sukupuolissa (“in the genders/sexes”).

In addition to sukupuolessa, Finnish offers related case forms for the same noun, such as sukupuolesta (elative, “out of” or “from the gender/sex”) and sukupuoleen (illative, “into the gender/sex”). The language uses these forms flexibly to express different grammatical relations while preserving the core meaning related to gender or sex.

Notes on usage: because Finnish does not have a separate universally fixed term for “gender” in all contexts, sukupuoli is commonly used for both biological and social dimensions. The precise sense—biological sex, social gender, or a combination—depends on the surrounding words and the topic of discussion.