Nemo, Eurovision’s first nonbinary winner, gets a hero’s welcome in Switzerland

Swiss Eurovision fans on May 12 gave a hero’s welcome to singer Nemo, who won the 68th Eurovision Song Contest with “The Code,” an operatic pop-rap ode to the singer’s journey toward embracing a nongender identity.

The singer, who is Swiss but currently lives in Berlin, landed in Zurich the day after the competition wrapped up in Malmo, Sweden.

Switzerland’s contestant beat Croatian rocker Baby Lasagna to the title by winning the most points from a combination of national juries and viewers around the world.

“Thank you so much,” Nemo said after the result from the May 11 final was announced soon after midnight. “I hope this contest can live up to its promise and continue to stand for peace and dignity for every person.”

Nemo is the first nonbinary winner of the contest, which has long been embraced as a safe haven by the LGBTQ community. Nemo is also the first Swiss winner since 1988, when Canadian chanteuse Celine Dion competed under the Swiss flag.

At a post-victory news conference, Nemo expressed pride in accepting the trophy for “people that are daring to be themselves and people that need to be heard and need to be understood. We need more compassion, we need more empathy.”

Nemo’s hometown of Biel congratulated the newly crowned star online and said the residents were ready to celebrate them.

“Congratulations! The city of Biel is extremely proud and says: Bravo and Merci Nemo for the fantastic song and performance and also for carrying the colors of Biel out into the world!,” the town said on its website. “Your city will celebrate and welcome you.”

Biel, with a population of around 60,000, is located around 60 miles southwest of Basel on Lake Biel. The town is bilingual, German and French, and is considered the watchmaking capital of Switzerland.

“Nemo creates and moves freely between classical, alternative, and popular culture,” the town’s culture official, Glenda Gonzalez Bassi, said. “A wonderful example of the dynamic and inclusive culture that we are proud of in Biel.”

Nemo – full name Nemo Mettler – bested finalists from 24 other countries, who all performed in front of a live audience of thousands and an estimated 180 million viewers around the world. Each contestant had three minutes to meld catchy tunes and eye-popping spectacles into performances capable of winning the hearts of viewers. Musical styles ranged across rock, disco, techno, and rap – sometimes a mashup of more than one.

Across Switzerland, people were already starting to think ahead to next year, when the country will host the next Eurovision contest. Traditionally the county of the winner hosts the music competition the following year.

The cities of Geneva, Basel, and St. Gallen have already positioned themselves to compete as hosts for the next contest, SRF reported.

“It is a great artistic and touristic opportunity to show the world what Switzerland is all about, and it is now up to us to take up this challenge together,” Gilles Marchand, Director General of the SRG media company, an association of many different Swiss media organizations.

As for Berlin – their adopted, second hometown – Nemo told German news agency dpa before the Eurovision contest that “I love Berlin so much because it’s such a creative city that is constantly changing. It’s a fun city.”

Nemo’s victory came a year and a half after the Swiss government rejected proposals to create a third gender or non-specific option for official records, arguing that a binary gender model was still “strongly anchored” in Swiss society.

Sibel Arslan, a Swiss Green Party lawmaker who launched a legislative proposal in 2017 to overhaul rules to enable nonbinary designations, hailed Nemo’s victory.

“A non-binary person who officially doesn’t exist in Switzerland has won Eurovision 2024 for us all with #BreakTheCode,” Ms. Arslan wrote on X, referencing Nemo’s winning song “The Code” at the musical extravaganza.

Her proposal, she said, is now “more relevant than ever.”

An Ipsos LGBT Pride online poll in 2023 stated that 6% of respondents in Switzerland identified as either transgender, nonbinary, genderfluid, or differently from male or female, the highest proportion among the 30 countries surveyed.

The youth wing of the Green Liberal Party said Nemo’s success was a triumph for Switzerland and nonbinary people.

“It’s time that Switzerland broke with its binary gender designation,” the group said on X.

This story was reported by The Associated Press. Material from Reuters was used in this report.