[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]
A nation famed for precision watches and chocolate perfection, Switzerland has now taken a dystopian turn: the imprisonment of a man for publicly proclaiming what has been accepted as biological truth for all of human history up until about thirty seconds ago in geologic time.
In response to a Facebook post in December 2022, Emanuel Brünisholz, a wind-instrument repairman from Burgdorf, wrote: “If you dig up LGBTQI people after 200 years, you’ll only find men and women based on their skeletons. Everything else is a mental illness promoted through the curriculum.” The imprecise reference to all LGBTQ people aside, it’s clear that Brünisholz was referring to gender dysphoria and the biological impossibility of “transitioning” to a different sex, a reality which gender ideologues deny.
Some offended Swiss citizens filed complaints that he was inciting hatred under Article 261bis of the Swiss Criminal Code. The 1995 law targets the dissemination of ideas that “degrade human dignity” based on race, ethnicity, or religion – but in 2020 this law was interpreted to include “sexual identities” as well.
With too much time on their hands, apparently, Burgdorf Police opened an investigation and interrogated Brünisholz in August 2023 over the “intent” of his comment. He replied, “Well, that those who think there’s not just man and woman, I want to tell them that there’s only man and woman.” He was also asked what he thought of the “LGBTQI community,” which he called an “extremist bunch.”
For this uncontroversial opinion, Brünisholz was convicted of “hate speech” and fined 500 Swiss Francs. He appealed, but in December a court reaffirmed the guilty verdict, and he was ordered to pay an extra 600 Francs in court costs. He did not appeal further, and has since refused to pay his fines and court fees. As a result, in early 2025 Brünisholz was sentenced to 60 days in prison, a term which begins this December.
Of the logical and linguistic contortions in the original judgment, Andrea Seaman at Spiked Online observes that the judge asserted that Brünisholz “maintains that sexual orientation according to LGBTQI does not exist, but is a mental illness. He therefore denies the people who belong to this group their human right to existence.” Seaman objected,
This is simply not true. Brünisholz denied no one’s existence. He ridiculed the notion that men can become women and women can become men, and pointed out the male and female skeletons are distinct. That is all. He was criticising the idea of gender identity, not attacking homosexuality or bisexuality.
[…]
Then comes the most ominous part of the judgment. Brünisholz is told that his punishment is ‘a lesson, to bring home to him the seriousness of the matter’. This shows that the point of the sentence is not merely to punish Brünisholz, but also to frighten others into silence. It is to make an example of him.
Exactly. Switzerland, once a bastion of neutrality and Enlightenment values, now joins Germany, the UK, and Canada in policing speech that questions the gender gospel. Brünisholz’s prosecutors argued his posts attacked the dignity of transgender people by implying their identities aren’t “real.” But what of the dignity of women who’ve fought for sex-based rights—athletes sidelined by biological males, or survivors in women’s prisons wary of male inmates? By jailing dissenters, the state isn’t protecting the vulnerable; it is enforcing the Left-wing dogma that biology is bigotry. This is the moral inversion at play: truth-tellers are punished while those demanding we pretend away puberty are celebrated.
Again, Brünisholz didn’t threaten violence, incite harm, or target individuals. His only “crime” was a straightforward affirmation of scientific fact, now criminalized thanks to the advancement of an ideology at war with reality itself. His case is the latest example of Europe’s growing prosecution of thoughtcrime, in which affirming chromosomal truth is now considered criminal bigotry.
Social media users denounced Brünisholz’s Orwellian ruling as both an infringement of free speech and a “stupid” denial of basic biology. One observed, “1984 is here,” noting that Brünisholz is “going to prison for stating a fact.”
Another commented, “Male and female skeletons ARE different. We can find a 1,000-year-old skeleton and know whether it was male or female. We are living through the stupidest age in the history of the world.”
Indeed. The irrationality is staggering. Biology isn’t a buffet; you can’t pick chromosomes à la carte. XX or XY are the binary building blocks of human sex, determining reproductive roles that no amount of surgery or personal pronouns can overwrite. Yet a Swiss court, in its woke wisdom, has prioritized willful delusion over facts. This isn’t justice; it’s moral perversion.
Brünisholz’s purported “hate speech” echoes the concerns of feminists like Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling or scientists like Debra Soh, who warn that gender ideology isn’t liberation from sex stereotypes; it’s a new cage for critical thought. Brünisholz’s imprisonment isn’t about hate speech; it’s about heresy. By punishing him, Switzerland signals that truth can be dispensed with when it inconveniently contradicts Left-wing orthodoxy.
At its core, this case exposes the fragility of gender ideology itself. Proponents demand universal affirmation or threaten a legal bludgeoning. Why? Because they know the emperor has no clothes. If sex is fluid, why the obsession with transitioning children as young as five? If orientation is innate, why conflate it with the performative theater of gender?
Free societies thrive on robust debate, not enforced consensus – much less the denial of reality. Brünisholz’s conviction emboldens censorious Leftist bullies everywhere: they would kill to be able to apply this cudgel to climate skeptics, vaccine critics, or anyone else whose facts expose the weakness of The Narrative.
This Swisstopian tale should galvanize legal reforms that prioritize evidence over “identity” – but it won’t, until the Left’s obsession with blurring the distinction between male and female is stamped out.
Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior
