There is a time before 11 May and a time after. Not only for Switzerland, which won the contest for the third time on that date, and for the non-binary community, which had probably never been given such a big stage - in the truest sense of the word - but also for the singing talent Nemo, who became an international star that evening. But what effect did all this have on the Swiss population? Does a media event of this magnitude have the power to influence attitudes towards a group without direct contact to that group? 

GDI researchers looked into this question in a survey. Two weeks before the ESC, 3000 people in German- and French-speaking Switzerland were asked how they would feel if a trans or non-binary person moved into their neighbourhood. Approximately a fifth said that they felt negatively about this idea. About 13% reacted positively to it. The majority - about two-thirds of respondents - perceived this as neither positive nor negative. A week after the ESC, another thousand people from French and German-speaking Switzerland were polled. 

And indeed, attitudes towards trans and non-binary people had become much more positive in this short period of time. The proportion of people with negative attitudes had fallen from 21% to about 13%, while surprisingly enough, the proportion of those with positive attitudes had risen by exactly the same amount. Two-thirds remained neutral.