Man Who Said Men and Women Have Different Skeletons Jailed for Hate Speech

When they found Ötzi, the Copper Age European whose remains were discovered in the Alps a few decades back, they nicknamed him The Iceman because they absolutely could identify him as having been a man. But maybe the forensic anthropologists making such determinations should be put in the pokey. That is, if the experience of a modern European, a hapless man named Emanuel Brünisholz, is any guide.

After all, the Swiss wind-instrument repairman currently sits in jail for doing something related.

As to how his problems began, The European Conservative (TEC) reports:

Brünisholz, from Burgdorf in the canton of Bern, responded to a December 2022 post by Swiss National Councillor Andreas Glarner, writing: “If you excavate LGBTQI people after 200 years, you will only find men and women among the skeletons; everything else is a mental illness that was fostered by the curriculum!”

This didn’t sit well with those who get offended for a living. As a result, TEC continues,

the comment, which stressed the immutability of biological sex, triggered complaints from activists who accused him of incitement to hatred under Article 261bis of the Swiss Criminal Code. Brünisholz was questioned by police in August 2023, and later found guilty of “publicly belittling” LGBT(QI) people.

Brünisholz received a suspended sentence of 2,500 Swiss francs, and was additionally ordered to pay a 500-franc fine along with 800 francs in court fees. Declaring that he would not pay for expressing a scientific fact, Brünisholz announced: “It’s happening. On 2 December I’m going to prison for 10 days!”

A Hopeless Case

Brünisholz filed no appeal against the verdict because his lawyer believes it’s “hopeless.” This judgment is likely correct, too, given the Swiss authorities’ attitude. As The Sunday Telegraph relates:

The court ruled that “the accused, through his comment published on Facebook, publicly denigrated the LGBT(Q)I group of people, on the basis of their sexual orientation, in a manner that violates human dignity.”

My, the statement just drips with supercilious self-righteousness — likely exhibited by pro-abortion sexual devolutionaries no less.

To his credit, however, Brünisholz is unbowed. As he wrote in a statement published at Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan’s Substack:

I am fully prepared to go to prison, if that is what it takes to expose the absurdity and authoritarianism of the trans ideology that has now taken root in Switzerland. I intend to face it with good humour; I will not let myself be bent or broken by those who hope to silence me through pressure or intimidation. That, after all, is their aim: to wear me down until I fall quiet. I have no intention of doing so.

The LGBTQ+ movement behaves like a zealous sect. They try to brand me a homophobe to shut me up. I am nothing of the sort. I repair wind instruments for a living, and I come from a left-wing, tolerant household. What troubles me is watching the activists in that movement exploit ordinary LGB people for political ends that strike me as dangerous non[s]ense. These tactics have begun to cast a long shadow over Switzerland and Europe alike, as a kind of woke dictatorship.

Note that Linehan himself has felt the sexual devolutionary thought police’s jackboot. He was arrested September 1 by five armed officers after flying into London’s Heathrow Airport — for “anti-trans” X posts he issued while in the U.S.

Pseudo-elite vs. The Street

So what can be learned here? First, as Town Hall points out reporting on Brünisholz’ plight, this is a type of class war. That is, wokeness is a pseudo-religion of pseudo-elites in government, academia, media, and Big Business. And it’s often enforced on common people possessing common sense — but not the uncommon means to fight back.

This pseudo-elite/street chasm is evidenced on social media, where John Q. Public regularly editorializes against wokeness in most clever ways. Just consider the following examples.

If “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon,” as Rules for Radicals author Saul Alinsky asserted, then the above are devastating. And it’s obvious why the unimaginative thought police want to outlaw such expression by branding it “hate.”

The second thing we can learn is that, contrary to journalist Piers Morgan’s book title and others’ wishful thinking, wokeness is not “dead.” It’s alive and all too well in most of the West and in many liberal U.S. states and localities. Consider, for example, the European Union’s recent demand that all member states recognize same-sex “marriages” performed in other EU countries. Consider, too, that Britain arrests approximately 12,000 people yearly for “hate speech” (read: speech the pseudo-elites hate). Stateside, know that New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani wants to devote 65 million taxpayer dollars to “transgender” treatments — including for minors.

What is true is that President Donald Trump, who despite his wealth is “street” himself, has confronted wokeness directly. Other GOP presidents, in contrast, turned a blind eye. Add to this that alternative media, traditional and social (e.g., X), have enabled people to express politically incorrect sentiments. And the more dissent is expressed, the more it’s expressed — there is strength in numbers. The bottom line, though, is:

The battle continues.

“The Truth Will Set You Free” — Though Not From Big Brother

Part of this battle, too, is that our Left would love to visit European-style hate-speech laws upon us Americans. Only, the pesky First Amendment (and American tradition) stands in their way. Understanding the nature of these laws illustrates the graveness of the threat.

Consider again the Brünisholz case. It’s reported that during his police interrogation, he was incredulous that he’d be given the third degree for speaking Truth. In this vein he said, as a reminder, that he wouldn’t pay a fine for “expressing a scientific fact.” After all, the Truth is always exculpatory, isn’t it?

Well, that’s just so old-fashioned. Note here that decades ago already, the Canadian Human Rights Commission said of a hate-speech charge, “Truth is not a defense.” A statement’s veracity is irrelevant.

Now, say what you will about medieval heresy laws, their enforcers never said Truth is irrelevant. They believed their laws served as guardians of Truth and as a defense against lies. Today, though, the inquisitors use laws as guardians of lies and as a defense against Truth.

Of course, since Truth is, properly understood, something divinely authored, opposing it gives a group a certain dark status. Wokeness is that darkness.