a little known fact about me is that as well as swords and girls, i love flowers
and you know whats a Really Good Flower?
the gladiolus it literally means sword and theyre lilies which are lesbian flowers
theres a flower out there for everyone another big fave of mine are laurestina which mean ‘ill die if you dont pay attention to me’ like big mood or what right
I thought violets were the sapphic flowers? Like, didn’t the wlw of ages past used to give each other violets to symbolise their love?
they are one of them yes! violets are a symbol of sapphic love, and this association largely stems from sappho’s poems, she mentions violets a few times in her poems.
the play “The Captive” by Edouard Bourdet also caused quite a stir (as in the play got forcefully shut down) as it featured a romance between two women, irene and madame d’aiguines.
madame sends irene violets in the play, and thats likely what started the tradition of giving violets to a girl you love!
now, lilies are a more modern association, it comes from japan as
百合 (yuri) means lily, and is also slang for girls who love girls.
the origins aren’t completely clear, but wikipedia suggests:
In 1976, Bungaku Itō, editor of Barazoku (薔薇族, lit. rose tribe), a magazine geared primarily towards gay men, first used the term yurizoku (百合族, lit. lily tribe) in reference to female readers in the title of a column of letters called Yurizoku no heya (百合族の部屋, lit. lily tribe’s room).
Not all women whose letters appeared in this short-lived column were necessarily lesbians, but some were and gradually an association developed. For example, the tanbi magazine Allan (アランAran) began running a Yuri Tsūshin (百合通信, “Lily Communication”) personal ad column in July 1983 for “lesbiennes” to communicate.
and other than lilies and violets, lavender flowers are associated with gay people in general.
Das lila Lied (the lavender song) is a german song that’s thought to be one of the first gay anthems. it was written in 1921 during the Weimar Republic, a brief time when LGBT people had more rights and censorship was lifted.
this isn’t the original version (this is a cover from 1996) but you can listen to it here:
edit should also probably clarify that this song is about the colour specifically, but because the colour is associated with gay people, the flower is too
failed2be-chill 