Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir
Iceland’s first female prime minister was also the world’s first openly lesbian head of government – and married her partner on the day a new law allowed it.
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir grew up in Reykjavík and worked as a flight attendant for Loftleiðir, Iceland’s airline. She became active in the flight attendants’ union and was elected to parliament for the Social Democrats in 1978. As minister of social affairs she became one of the country’s most popular politicians.
In 1994, after losing a party leadership contest, she raised her fist and said: “My time will come!” – a phrase that became a proverb in Iceland. Fifteen years later it came: in February 2009, after Iceland’s banking crash and mass protests, she became prime minister, the first woman in the post and the first openly lesbian head of government in the world.
Her government led Iceland out of the financial crisis. In 2010 parliament passed a law allowing same-sex marriage. On the day it came into force, Jóhanna married her partner, the writer Jónína Leósdóttir, with whom she had been in a registered partnership since 2002.
She stepped down in 2013 after 35 years in parliament. Internationally she is remembered as a pioneer; in Iceland her sexuality was hardly ever an issue.