Portrait
Rob Jetten
Born
25 March 1987Veghel, Netherlands
Politician, Prime Minister of the NetherlandsNetherlands

Rob Jetten

In 2026 he became the youngest prime minister in Dutch history – and the first openly gay one.

Rob Jetten grew up in Uden in the province of North Brabant. He studied public administration in Nijmegen, worked for the rail infrastructure company ProRail and joined the liberal party Democrats 66 (D66), whose youth organisation he led.

In 2017 he was elected to the Dutch House of Representatives, and a year later, at 31, he became D66’s youngest-ever parliamentary leader. From 2022 to 2024 he was minister for climate and energy in Mark Rutte’s fourth cabinet. In 2023 he took over the leadership of D66.

In the parliamentary elections of October 2025 he led D66 to its best result ever; the party became the joint-largest in parliament. After months of negotiations he was sworn in as prime minister in February 2026 – the youngest head of government in Dutch history and the first who is openly gay.

Jetten has spoken openly about his sexuality since the start of his political career. His partner is the Argentine field hockey player Nicolás Keenan.

More in March

01MarBorn 1892134th birthday

Mercedes de Acosta

A poet and screenwriter whose love affairs with Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and other stars made her a legend of lesbian history.

01MarBorn 1880146th birthday

Lytton Strachey

The witty founder of modern biography was at the heart of the Bloomsbury Group – and lived in an unconventional household with a painter who loved him.

01MarDied 193690th anniversary of death

Mikhail Kuzmin

His 1906 novel “Wings” was the first in Russian to tell of love between men with a happy ending.

02MarBorn 194284th birthday

Lou Reed

His songs gave a voice to drag queens, hustlers and outsiders – and he lived for years with a trans woman, Rachel.

02MarDied 199927th anniversary of death

Dusty Springfield

Her voice connected British pop with American soul, while her openness about attraction to women challenged the expectations surrounding a female star.

02MarDied 199135th anniversary of death

Lou Sullivan

The first trans man known to identify publicly as gay, he showed that gender identity and sexual orientation are two different things.

03MarBorn 197353rd birthday

Xavier Bettel

The first EU head of government to marry a same-sex partner while in office – and the introducer of marriage equality in Luxembourg.

03MarBorn 1756270th birthday

Mademoiselle Raucourt

The great tragedienne of the Comédie-Française loved women – and when the Church refused her coffin, the crowd stormed the doors.

03MarDied 197551st anniversary of death

Therese Giehse

The great actress of Brecht and Dürrenmatt fought the Nazis in exile with Erika Mann’s cabaret – and was her partner.

04MarBorn 194878th birthday

Jean O’Leary

A former nun, she brought gay and lesbian activists into the White House for the first time in 1977 – and co-founded National Coming Out Day.

05MarBorn 1922104th birthday

Pier Paolo Pasolini

A Marxist, a Catholic and openly gay, he made some of the most radical films of the 20th century – and was murdered on a beach near Rome.

05MarDied 194482nd anniversary of death

Max Jacob

Picasso’s first friend in Paris, a pioneer of the prose poem – he died in the Drancy camp, days before deportation to Auschwitz.

06MarBorn 1898128th birthday

Therese Giehse

The great actress of Brecht and Dürrenmatt fought the Nazis in exile with Erika Mann’s cabaret – and was her partner.

06MarBorn 1897129th birthday

Victoria Kent

Spain’s pioneering woman lawyer reformed the prisons of the Republic – and spent forty years in exile with her American partner.

06MarBorn 1475551st birthday

Michelangelo

The creator of David and the Sistine Chapel wrote passionate love poems to a young Roman nobleman.

06MarDied 198739th anniversary of death

Mel Boozer

In 1980 he became the first openly gay person nominated for Vice President – and told the Democratic convention there was no difference between racism and homophobia.

07MarDied 198838th anniversary of death

Divine

Through films, stage work and dance records, Divine made drag a vehicle for unruly humour and outsider stardom.

07MarDied 196759th anniversary of death

Alice B. Toklas

She shared Gertrude Stein’s life in Paris for almost four decades, then found her own readers with a cookbook.

08MarDied 198640th anniversary of death

Hubert Fichte

A German writer whose accounts of sexuality and religion crossed the boundaries of fiction and ethnography.

09MarBorn 1910116th birthday

Samuel Barber

The composer of the “Adagio for Strings” shared his life for over forty years with the composer Gian Carlo Menotti.

09MarBorn 1892134th birthday

Vita Sackville-West

An aristocrat who loved women, eloped with Violet Trefusis dressed as a man – and inspired Virginia Woolf’s “Orlando”.

09MarDied 198937th anniversary of death

Robert Mapplethorpe

His photographs of flowers, faces and gay sexuality were perfectly composed – and sparked America’s fiercest battle over art and censorship.

10MarBorn 198343rd birthday

Janet Mock

A writer and filmmaker who brought Black and Native Hawaiian trans experience into memoir and television.

10MarBorn 197452nd birthday

Jean Wyllys

Brazil’s first openly gay member of parliament to make queer rights his programme left the country in 2019 because of death threats: “I want to live.”

11MarBorn 197749th birthday

Eudy Simelane

A South African footballer whose murder drew attention to the violence faced by lesbian women.

11MarDied 193195th anniversary of death

F. W. Murnau

A silent-film director who found new ways to make movement, light and shadow tell a story.

12MarBorn 192898th birthday

Edward Albee

His plays exposed the strain beneath respectable family life, while he resisted the idea that sexuality should define a writer’s range.

12MarBorn

Vaslav Nijinsky

The greatest male dancer of his age was Diaghilev’s lover and star – until his marriage, and then his mind, ended his career.

13MarDied 196462nd anniversary of death

Kitty Genovese

Her murder became a textbook case of the “bystander effect” – while the woman she loved had to grieve in silence for forty years.

14MarBorn 1887139th birthday

Sylvia Beach

Her Paris bookshop Shakespeare and Company published James Joyce’s “Ulysses” – and she shared her life with the bookseller across the street.

14MarDied 199135th anniversary of death

Howard Ashman

A lyricist and dramatist who helped restore the musical to the heart of Disney animation.

14MarDied 20188th anniversary of death

Marielle Franco

A Black bisexual woman from the favela who fought police violence in Rio – and was assassinated in 2018.

15MarBorn 194878th birthday

Kate Bornstein

“I don’t call myself a woman, and I know I’m not a man”: her book “Gender Outlaw” helped a whole generation think beyond two genders.

16MarBorn 198937th birthday

Gabriel Attal

A French politician who became the Fifth Republic’s youngest prime minister and its first openly gay one.

16MarBorn 1822204th birthday

Rosa Bonheur

The most famous woman painter of the 19th century needed a police permit to wear trousers – and lived for over forty years with Nathalie Micas.

16MarBorn 1897129th birthday

Karl Meier («Rolf»)

Under the name “Rolf” he edited “Der Kreis”, the Zurich magazine that kept gay life alive in Europe through war and repression.

16MarDied 20197th anniversary of death

Barbara Hammer

Across more than 80 moving-image works, she explored lesbian desire, the body and the gaps in queer history.

16MarDied 194086th anniversary of death

Selma Lagerlöf

The first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature loved women – as her letters to two companions reveal.

17MarBorn 197650th birthday

Stephen Gately

The Boyzone singer came out in 1999 to pre-empt a tabloid – and became a hero of gay rights for how he handled being forced out of the closet.

17MarBorn 196957th birthday

Alexander McQueen

A taxi driver’s son from East London, he turned fashion shows into dark, unforgettable theatre.

17MarBorn 193888th birthday

Rudolf Nureyev

The greatest male dancer of the 20th century defected from the Soviet Union in 1961 and transformed ballet – he died of AIDS at 54.

17MarBorn 1912114th birthday

Bayard Rustin

He helped organise the March on Washington while opponents used his sexuality to undermine him and the civil rights movement.

17MarDied 197650th anniversary of death

Luchino Visconti

An aristocrat and communist who founded Italian neorealism, made “The Leopard” and “Death in Venice” – and lived openly among friends as a gay man.

18MarBorn 1790236th birthday

Marquis de Custine

After a beating in 1824, Paris society shut him out without any law – yet he lived openly with his partner and wrote a classic about Russia.

18MarDied 201610th anniversary of death

Guido Westerwelle

A German liberal politician who became the country’s first openly gay foreign minister.

19MarBorn 1897129th birthday

Moms Mabley

The first woman comic at the Apollo Theater wore men’s suits off stage – and as “Moms” said things no other comedian dared to say.

20MarBorn 198937th birthday

Xavier Dolan

At 19 he made his first film, “I Killed My Mother” – and became one of the most celebrated young directors of queer cinema.

21MarBorn 196264th birthday

Zackie Achmat

He refused HIV medication until the government made it available to all – and helped force South Africa to provide treatment to millions.

21MarBorn 193591st birthday

Hubert Fichte

A German writer whose accounts of sexuality and religion crossed the boundaries of fiction and ethnography.

21MarDied 1920106th anniversary of death

Evelina Haverfield

She punched a policeman for women’s suffrage, nursed soldiers in Serbia’s war – and left everything to her companion Vera Holme.

22MarBorn 193096th birthday

Stephen Sondheim

He reinvented the Broadway musical with “Company”, “Sweeney Todd” and “Into the Woods” – and found love only late in life.

22MarDied 1687339th anniversary of death

Jean-Baptiste Lully

The son of a Florentine miller became the most powerful musician at the court of Louis XIV – and fell from favour over an affair with a page.

23MarDied 197254th anniversary of death

Cristóbal Balenciaga

His command of cut and fabric reshaped twentieth-century couture, while his private life remained closely guarded.

24MarDied 20206th anniversary of death

Terrence McNally

The playwright of “Love! Valour! Compassion!” brought gay lives and the AIDS years to Broadway – and won five Tony Awards.

25MarBorn 194779th birthday

Elton John

A singer and songwriter whose public life also became a platform for the fight against AIDS.

26MarBorn 1859167th birthday

A. E. Housman

The author of “A Shropshire Lad” combined exacting Latin scholarship with poems about love and loss. His love for Moses Jackson remained largely private.

26MarBorn 1911115th birthday

Tennessee Williams

The author of “A Streetcar Named Desire” wrote about desire and loneliness – and lived for fourteen years with Frank Merlo.

26MarDied 1892134th anniversary of death

Walt Whitman

The poet of “Leaves of Grass” celebrated the body and “the love of comrades” – and became an icon for gay men around the world.

27MarDied 201214th anniversary of death

Adrienne Rich

Her poetry and essays connected private experience with public power, making motherhood, lesbian life and the limits of freedom central subjects of her work.

28MarBorn 198640th birthday

Lady Gaga

With “Born This Way” she gave a generation of queer kids an anthem – and has spoken openly about being bisexual.

28MarDied 194185th anniversary of death

Virginia Woolf

The great modernist writer wrote “Orlando”, a novel about changing sex, as a love letter to Vita Sackville-West.

29MarDied 197452nd anniversary of death

Karl Meier («Rolf»)

Under the name “Rolf” he edited “Der Kreis”, the Zurich magazine that kept gay life alive in Europe through war and repression.

29MarDied 193789th anniversary of death

Karol Szymanowski

Poland’s greatest composer after Chopin wrote an opera about a king seduced by a beautiful shepherd – and a novel about love between men.

30MarBorn 196462nd birthday

Tracy Chapman

With “Fast Car” she became a star in 1988 – an extremely private artist whose relationship with a woman became known only through others.

30MarBorn 1844182nd birthday

Paul Verlaine

The great poet of French Symbolism and Arthur Rimbaud lived a passionate, destructive love affair – which ended with a gunshot.

30MarDied 198442nd anniversary of death

Gaëtan Dugas

A Canadian flight attendant whose posthumous portrayal as AIDS “Patient Zero” made him a scapegoat.

31MarBorn 1872154th birthday

Sergei Diaghilev

The founder of the Ballets Russes brought together Stravinsky, Nijinsky and Picasso – and loved several of the men he made famous.

31MarBorn 199036th birthday

Lyra McKee

A young journalist who wrote about the “ceasefire babies” of Northern Ireland – and about growing up gay. She was shot dead at 29.

31MarDied 20179th anniversary of death

Gilbert Baker

He dyed and sewed the first rainbow flags by hand – and refused to trademark them, because the flag belonged to everyone.