Town that burned effigies of Kim Jong Un and Gaddafi sets fire to straw trans woman

• The small Swiss village of Bassersdorf constructs a ‘Böögg,’ a huge doll that is lit on fire for Sechseläuten.
• The Böögg is shaped like a snowman and is used to mark the end of the winter season.
• Bassersdorf has a penchant for heading in a different route.

Every year, the small Swiss village of Bassersdorf constructs a ‘Böögg,’ a huge doll that is lit on fire for Sechseläuten, an annual springtime event.

Traditionally, the Böögg is shaped like a snowman and is used to mark the end of the winter season – yet Bassersdorf has a penchant for heading in a different route.

In the past, instead of winter, Basserdorf has produced effigies to depict persons they consider to be undesirable, such as tyrants like Kim Jong-Un and Muammar al-Gaddafi.

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This year, the community made one in the shape of a transgender lady, dubbed ‘Diversity Böögg.’

According to Swedish newspaper Queer.de, the Böögg wore a rainbow skirt, a red tie, and cosmetics, and had visible breasts and a penis.

The effigy aroused outrage, prompting one resident to file a criminal complaint against the municipality.

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Christian Weiss, the master of ceremonies, emphasized that this was not a personal assault, but rather a message against “rampant narcissistic hypersensitivity and the pathological lack of humor.”

The idea, according to Weiss, was to focus on a current issue, but they believed that anything like the epidemic or the war in Ukraine would be too depressing, and Sechseläuten is supposed to be “happy and entertaining.”

Instead, the ceremony’s organizers chose gender and diversity, burning a transgender woman’s figure.

‘Many observers grinned when the Böögg’s skirt was blown up by the wind,’ Weiss added.

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However, not everyone found the joke amusing.

An 82-year-old man filed a criminal complaint against the municipal county, describing the ceremony as “inhuman” and claiming that the “distorted image” harms a stigmatized group of people.