Right Wing Progressives in the North
A person not familiar with Nordic politics might think that left wing means progressive and right wing conservative or at least moderate. In Northern Europe that is not the case as anyone familiar with the Swedish moderaterna can tell.
In Finland the local version of the Moderaterna - the National Coalition party - is second to none with the possible exception of the Green party. The National Coalition did not only support gay marriage but were the primus motor behind the bill. Former prime minister Alexander Stubb made a point of having his name first on the list of parliamentarians demanding gay marriage.
Our other center-right party - the Center party - is indifferent about progressive agenda in domestic politics. In the EU parlianment they are in the liberal group and vote accordingly. Their voterbase is probably the most conservative in the country but what symptomatic to the party is trading their support toward progressive policies to personal gain from business dealings.
Currently there is a proposal about changing the law on sex change and legally becoming the other sex. It is currently legal but one must undergo the process of sterilization to have a passport with the new sex. I don't know why is that exactly and I'm sure the new bill will be introduced into legistlation briefly but the dynamics of the process are interesting.
The proposal came from a gay woman representing the communist party. She is an alphabetical active so this is she doing what she was voted for. The Center party prime minister Juha Sipilä has been sitting on the bill and refusing to reject it nor promoting it. The reason is that the former leader of the coalition government member Finns party Timo Soini was personally against it and the prime minister agreed to burry the proposal for the duration of the government. Now things have changed since the Finns party elected a new leader and Soinis' fraction broke off from the party. (They now continue in the government and the Finns party is out). Soini holds no bargaining power anymore and Sipilä is free to do as he pleases.
Today the student organizations of both the Center party and the National Coalition party demanded that the trans bill proposal should be rejected. Rejected Because it is too mild. They are pressuring Sipilä and the National Coalition leader Petteri Orpo to go further than just getting rid of the part about sterilizing the sex changers and going fully sex neutral or introducing new non-binart genders. This is so radical that even the progressive Green party is very carefull when discussing the issue and the Communists in my knowledge have not mentioned it.
The student unions of the center-right are just as progressive as the greenies if not more. I think that they are trying to be more papal than the pope him self here but that is the political situation in Finland. The hardest pressure for the government to act on the matter is actually coming from within their own organizations. PM Sipilä is not keen on acting on it out of his own initiative because he sees it as leverage he can later use to bargain with an get something for his associates. The opposition might just lay low because they wish not to give Sipilä anything in exchange while he is under pressure by his own people.