Monday, 15th July 2019

The rainbow flag is a globally recognised symbol for gay pride and our diverse LGB&T communities. However, there is so much more to LGB&T symbolism out there to celebrate and this year we are going to share with you a collection of flowers, with their own symbolism and hidden meaning, in the run-up to Leicester Pride 2019 and presentation of our Health and Wellbeing Marquee at the event.

Every week leading up to Leicester Pride, we will present you with another flower of significance. As a culmination of this campaign we will give you an opportunity to create a Flower Wall using these flowers, or similar, at the Marquee on 31st August 2019, with your own messages of acceptance, understanding and unity.

The will be a rolling blog and the new flowers will be added onto here and our social media pages every Monday, starting from 15 July until Leicester Pride week. Also following all things Trade at Leicester Pride using our hashtag #TradeHWM.

15 July 2019

Flower of this week is: Green Carnation – featuring in Oscar Wilde’s plays, this flower has become a symbol of his life, and his relationships. Green Carnation was then used as a code – a badge of homosexuality that only those in the know would know. This trend continued into the early 20th century, unusual colour of this flower was pointing out that the love between two men is not unnatural as in nature we can also notice variety amongst the expected.

22 July 2019

Flower of the week is: Pansies. Although it’s not known whether the term was created by the gay community or given to them, it came to be used in a derogatory manner, much like other words such as ‘queer’. However, the powerful creativity of the LGBT+ community questioned the negative connotations applied to such words and symbols. Some argue that difference and diversity is empowering and therefore celebrate their queerness.

29 July 2019

Flower of the week is: Violets. Dating all the way back to the 600s BC, violets has been used as a symbol of lesbian love. The Greek poet Sappho, best known for her lyric poems about love and women, described herself and a lover wearing garlands of violets.

5 August 2019

Morrissey, when writing sexually-ambiguous songs with themes of love and lust loved dressing stage in gladioli, he explained that “flowers are simply innocent and beautiful and have never caused strife for anyone”.

12 August 2019

‘Lavender boy’ has been a derogatory term for gay men since the 1920s, with any man showing femme (or not-quite-hetero) characteristics described as having a ‘streak of lavender’. Culturally positioned as ‘gendered’ colours, today lavender roses are sometimes shared with LGBT+ partners on Valentine’s Day or when celebrating a same sex marriage.

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