It sounds like a headline taken from “Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museum;” but alas, bearded lady drag queen Conchita Wurst wins the Eurovision Song Contest with song ‘Rise Like a Phoenix.” Conchita earned the most points (290) for Austria.

According to BBC, Conchita shared while collecting her trophy: “This night is dedicated to everyone who believes in a future of peace and freedom. You know who you are – we are unity and we are unstoppable.”

Conchita Wurst is the first male to female drag act to win the Eurovision Song Contest held in Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen, this year marking the 59^th annual Eurovision Song Contest.

In case you’re curious, Eurovision has been around since 1956 as one of the largest talent shows in the world, with an estimated global audience of about 125 million.

The most well-known success story to emerge from the competition singing show is a little band called ABBA, from Sweden. Before the show, the band was virtually unknown. Their contest-winning song “Waterloo” reached number one in the UK and Germany, number six in the U.S. and the group went on to sell more than 370 million records worldwide.

What makes this singing competition unlike America’s “X Factor” or “American Idol” is that this competition takes place throughout much of the world. CNN calls it “reality TV on steroids.”

Each year, around 40 nations from Spain to Azerbaijan choose a musical act to represent their country. Each competitor sings and original song in front of a huge television audience.

To celebrate the European festival of kitsch, some contestants boldly sashay across the stage in barely-there dresses, and shriek into wind machines with all the oxygen their lungs can hold. While officials describe the television event as being “non-political” with the intention of uniting Europe through song, politics find their way into the voting system, tipping the scales on who may win the competition.

Eurovision expert and editor-in-chief of Wiwibloggs.com, the popular Eurovision website, William Lee Adams, has been stationed in Denmark for the competition since late April.

Adams shares, “Eurovision is about music, but it’s also about identity and nation branding. The artists and their songs become symbols of the countries they represent.”

Thus, the winner this year, Conchita Wurst, breaking all barriers with her deliberately defiant, astronomically unique performance has come as a remarkable surprise and commendable achievement for the Eurovision contest and the European community at large.

Earlier in the competition, tensions over Crimea were coloring the perception of acts from Russia and the Ukraine. During the semi-finals on May 6, some of the audience inside Copenhagen’s B&W Hallerne booed the Russian act, a pair of 17-year-old twins who go by the name The Tolmachevy Sisters.

“Putin’s anti-LGBT laws have left Europeans angry,” Adams shares. “The booing was a release, a statement of solidarity with Ukraine and Russia’s sexual minorities.”

Choosing drag queen Conchita Wurst (the alter ego of 25-year-old Thomas Neuwirth) to secure Austria’s second victory in the competition (the last was in 1966) is a giant step in the right direction. Pushing the boundaries of gender identity, Conchita is keeps the progressive liberal side of European standards on the tip of everyone’s tongue and the screen of everyone’s television sets.