Finland’s new PM is the daughter of same-sex parents

Sanna Marin of Finland's Social Democrats
 is pictured after she was elected to
the post of Prime Minister in Helsinki,
Finland, on December 8, 2019.
(VESA MOILANEN/Lehtikuva/AFP via Getty)

Sanna Marin, the newly-elected prime minister of Finland, will be the youngest sitting country leader in the world and is the daughter of same-sex parents.

The Social Democrat, 34, will replace Antti Rinne who resigned last week, making the country’s five-party coalition entirely led by women. Four out of five are in their thirties.

The rest of the coalition is made up of Li Anderson, 32, of the Left Alliance; Maria Ohisalo, 34, of the Green League; Katri Kulmuni, 32, of the Centre party and Anna-Maja Henriksson, 55, of the Swedish People’s party.

Marin is currently Finland’s transport minister but was elected as the country’s leader on December 8 and will be sworn in this week. She will be the third female prime minister in the Nordic country’s history.

She was the first in her family to go to university, and was raised by a mother in a same-sex relationship, or what she has previously described as a “rainbow family”.

Sanna Marin: New prime minister of Finland said her LGBT+ family felt “invisible”.

Marin told the Finnish site Menaiset in 2015 that she felt her upbringing in an LGBT+ household influenced her values as a politician.

She said: “For me, people have always been equal. It’s not a matter of opinion. That’s the foundation of everything.”

But growing up those around her did not always feel the same way, and she said that growing up with same-sex parents made her feel “invisible” and that they “were not recognized as a true family or equal with others”.

She added: “But I wasn’t bullied much. Even when I was little, I was very candid and stubborn. I wouldn’t have taken anything easy.”

Marin has shot up through ranks of politics in Finland since she became head of the council in Finland’s third-largest city Tampere at just 27 years old. She is also a mother to an almost-two-year-old daughter.

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Same-sex marriage in Finland has been legal since 1 March 2017. A bill for the legalisation of such marriages was approved by the Finnish Parliament on 12 December 2014 and signed by President Sauli Niinistö on 20 February 2015. The law took effect on 1 March 2017.

Previously, from 2002 [Санне уже было 17 лет] until 2017, registered partnerships had been available for same-sex couples, which provided the same rights and responsibilities as marriage for opposite-sex couples, except e.g. adoption rights and the right to a joint last name.