Белая смерть

 "Koko sodassa oloaikanani ammuin noin 500 ryssää."
Photo: Hannu Rissanen.

One man was a renowned sniper during the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union. The fighting, which began in November 1939 and ended in a Russian victory in mid-March, was fiercest along Finland’s eastern border, in Karelia. Read something about Simo Häyhä, (1905 - 2002), whose life this story imaginatively elaborates on.
Häyhä wrote his own diary in 1939 and 1940 about his own war experiences and so on. This booklet was lost until the heirs of Häyhä recent discovered the texts:

Throughout my war, I shot about 500 rounds Russians.

The White Death, like russians called him, was a homosexual, probably: his best friend's name (after the war) was Mikael Hallikainen.
Simo Häyhä pretty much concealed his tendencies, and after the war he lived his life in Ruokolahti but his life was threatened many times.
Why?
Both male and female same-sex sexual activity have been legal in Finland since 1971 with some kind of promotion thereof decriminalized and the age of consent equalized in 1999, and homosexuality declassified as an illness in 1981. Discrimination based on sexual orientation in areas such as employment, the provision of goods and services, etc, was criminalized in 1995 and discrimination based on gender identity in 2005.
Same-sex marriage and joint adoption by same-sex couples were approved by the Finnish Parliament in 2014, and the law took effect on 1 March 2017.
But listen: over the war times it was a hard crime.