Story by Johanna Taylor, Summer 2022
The LGBTQIA community is the community I feel closest to, and having a flower to illustrate a part of my identity is very meaningful to me.
When researching different plants, I thought to myself “I wonder if Queer people have plant stories” and after 30 seconds I found out there was! There are six different flowers that have a story and act of resistance. Finding a flower that is a part of my history made me feel celebrated.
From that research I found that Lesbians have a plant, the Violet flower. How Violets came to represent WLW was in 1926, a female character in Édouard Bourdet’s play “The Captive,” sent a bouquet of violets to another female character, as a romantic gesture. The New York City district attorney’s office faced many backlashes and shut down the production. Sadly, the sale of violets plummeted because of what the flower now represented. In protest of this uproar, some women wore violets on their lapels. Later, when the pride flag was created violet was added to portray spirit. I find it really sentimental that a plant connected to a group of women/ people who could not publicly express themselves still found a way to be loud. As a lesbian it can be fearsome to just hold your partner’s hand, so I really cherish the friendships I have with other queer people where we support one another and create safe spaces to be our most authentic selves.
Learning about Queer history is so important to me because of the lessons and advice I am able to receive from those who did it before me. Through them, I am reminded that being genuine and happy is resistance. There is a deep intersection between marginalized groups and plants and I believe that needs to be explored more. Our history can help us grow and heal from struggles that are still impacting us today and we should have a healthier relationship with our home, and a more reciprocal relationship where we sustain and unite one another. Such as with violets they help inflammation and can make a nice sleep blend tea, and we can honor them by sharing their history.
Ultimately, I am very glad I was able to sit down and research a part of our history and now I wanna give all my friends and family’s bouquet of Violets.