Finland chooses to be open to the LGBTI community because time and history have shown to their country that ignoring the existence of this community would definitely mean ignoring the existence of a reality. Before the LBGT rights were given much priority in Finland, the LGBTI community have suffered numerous abuses and crimes against them. In fact, gays in Finland back then were illegal until 1971. Hence, gay men often meet in parks after dark and hide themselves away from the crowd in fear of being rejected. In addition to that, during the 50's and 60’s, there was silent acceptance of the homophobic atmosphere of violence towards homosexuals. Gangs of young men, often emboldened by alcohol, ventured into the parks at night and raided public toilets to find gay men and would proceed to "teach them a lesson." Worst case even, they sometimes victimize straight men for their wrongful accusations. That’s just one of the many abuses being thrown upon to the LGBTI community. However, times have changed and discriminations have lessened - as can be seen by the improvement of our laws and the openness of it now to the LGBT community. History shows that Homosexuality in our country, from being criminalized in 1894, has already been decriminalized in 1971. In fact, on December 2006, EU poll put Finnish support for same-sex marriage at 45 %, placing Finland 12th in the survey conducted in 27 EU countries. In a more recent then, August 2010 survey by the Finnish Broadcasting Company, 54 % of Finns support and 35 % oppose same-sex marriage. Although there are still others who oppose LGBT rights, at least most of my country men believe in the value of equality regardless of any aspect that can be discriminated, gender included.
Today, LGBT enjoys many privileges and rights in Finland as supposed to be, for they are no different from any straight human being alive. Rightly so, homosexuality is removed from the illness classification list and the Criminal Code is also revised to cope up with LGBT rights ruling that there is no longer any age of consent difference between sexual acts performed by heterosexuals and those performed by homosexuals. These presented are only a part of the many rights evolved in Finland through time. And if you go deeper and search every right for LGBTI in Finland, you will definitely conclude that this country is open to any gender possible. In fact, same-sex marriage will become legal in Finland starting in 2017. The Finnish Parliament approved a bill legalizing same-sex unions in November 2014, and Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, signed the measure into law in February 2015. The bill started out as a “citizens’ initiative” – a public petition with a reported 167,000 signatures. Finland becomes the last of the five Nordic countries to legalize same-sex marriage, joining Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.
In line with this, the battle of equality for homosexuality never ends. For an instance, LGBT movement in Finland receives financial and organizational help from international sources. Thus, much of the funding used to push the LGBT agenda in our country is also coming from the United States government and the Finnish Government itself. In fact, On May 15, 2014 – the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia“ -- the US and Finland signed a joint statement to substantially increase Finland’s monetary support for the “Global Equality Fund.” Coordinated by the US State Department, the Fund directs money into countries around the world for LGBT “legislative advocacy” and to “strengthen” local LGBT organizations, to change laws and culture in those countries. One of the international organizations who raised concerns to Finland about LGBT community was Amnesty International. This international organization welcomes the commitment of the Finnish government to reform the current law and practices on gender legal recognition for trans individuals and the establishment of a working group tasked to propose a new draft law by the end of September 2014. In this submission, the organization raises some concerns with regard to current laws, policies and practices on gender legal recognition and in particular their impact on the enjoyment of human rights of trans people in Finland. With the help of other international organizations, changes were made to Finland to cope up with the opening of rights not only to male and female but also to the LGBT community.
This phenomenon can be explained by looking into the Institutional theory. Institutional theorists assert that the institutional environment can strongly influence the development of formal structures in an organization, often more profoundly than market pressures. Innovative structures that improve technical efficiency in early-adopting organizations are legitimized in the environment. Ultimately these innovations reach a level of legitimization where failure to adopt them is seen as "irrational and negligent" (or they become legal mandates). This is now to conclude that with the help of international organizations, Finland changed its policies and laws that best fir with the needs of their citizens and that can cope up with the pressures given to them by the international organizations advocating for equal human rights, especially with regards to LGBT.