By Jude Jones
This month, German news site queer.de reported that the Federal Democratic Party (EDU), a Swiss Christian fundamentalist party, had launched measures to block the 2025 iteration of the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) being hosted in Basel.
Illustration by GAY45
Condemning the ESC as ‘blasphemous’ and a ‘propaganda platform’ for homosexuals and queer people after Swiss entrant Nemo’s victory last year, party leader Philippe Karoubi denounced the expenditure of state funds on ‘ideologies that clearly violate Western Judeo-Christian values and those of Switzerland in particular,’ such as ‘transgender ideology’ and ‘wokeism.’
When assented to referendum, 66.4 per cent of voters in Basel approved the use of cantonal funds for the event. However, that the EDU measure was allowed to go to referendum after gaining 4,000 signatures from members of the public reflects a worrying trend nationally and Europe-wide, reported on by GAY45 over this year’s course: a rising tide of a publicly anti-queer politics, guised under the dog-whistle of upholding “Western” and/or “traditional” values.
This year alone in Europe, far-right candidates have won presidential elections in Hungary and Georgia, while Romania’s presidential elections have recently been hijacked by renegade TikTok ultranationalist Cǎlin Georgescu, who – among other baffling positions – denies COVID-19, the moon landing, and has declared no campaign expenses by claiming ‘We are in God’s hand.’ Elsewhere, far-right blocs have won significant inroads in Austria, Germany, and France, while ‘anti-woke’ politician Kemi Badenoch was elected the Leader of the Opposition in the UK, one of the few geographically European nations to have retained a centre-left – albeit still anti-trans – government majority within this anti-queer quagmire.
Against these worrisome tendencies, Eurovision stands as something of an anomaly: an unapologetically campy, queer, and inclusive music-song contest, funded by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). It is a rare, continent-wide spotlight for LBGTQ+ artistry. As early as 1961, French singer Jean-Claude Pascal was able to win with a song, “Nous les amoureux”, which illuded to same-sex relationships. In 1998, Israel’s Dana International became the competition’s first trans performer and first trans winner. More recently, bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst won the 2014 iteration; trans Dutch makeup influencer NikkieTutorials hosted in 2021, the same year queer rock band Måneskin won the competition for Italy; and Switzerland’s Nemo became the competition’s first non-binary winner in 2024.
However, the competition has also long been an arena in which regional political and humanitarian struggles have been staged in pop-ified microcosm. In 2022, Russia was banned from competition for its military invasion of Ukraine. When, in 2024, Israel was subsequently allowed to enter despite its ongoing invasion and genocide in occupied Palestine, outrage ensued. The EBU was forced to release a statement describing Eurovision as ‘a non-political music event’ and ‘not a contest between governments.’ The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement responded by calling for boycott and condemning ‘the EBU’s whitewash of apartheid Israel’s genocide against 2.3million Palestinians in Gaza.’
If those were already unsteady waters for the competition to traverse, it now must compete not only with the extension of Israeli violence into Lebanon in conjunction with its worsening aggression in Palestine, but also existential anxieties over NATO’s future following the election of anti-NATO, pro-Russia candidates in the USA and Georgia, and the mounting threat of anti-queer politics in Europe’s right-wing mainstream.
How far will Eurovision be willing to go to test its apolitical self-positioning in the face of these crises, particularly when they increasingly imbricate those queer folk who remain the lifeblood of its creative force (and income stream)? Its response will likely be a stress test for that of the wider European community, toying with which political statements are considered acceptable politics (i.e. the denunciation of Russian aggression), and which are simply “too political” or “too risky” (i.e. the denunciation of Israeli aggression; increasingly, the denunciation of anti-trans and anti-queer violence). The rallying of Switzerland’s voters against anti-Eurovision homophobia may be a warming initial sign, however this writer expects it to be a rougher and more testing ride from here.
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