Women gather at Le Monocle, Paris, France, 1932, in this unattributed photo - likely by Brassaï.
Symbols and Signals
How do you tell if someone is gay? "If she's wearing flannel", you might answer, "or if she has an undercut", although that might not cut it anymore.
Many LGBT+ people throughout history would come up with covert ways to signal to each other that they were part of the same community. These had to be subtle enough to fly under the radar of cisgender heterosexuals, so they were often items of clothing, accessories, slang, styles, or small tattoos that could easily be covered up.
The necessity for secret signals is somewhat diminished these days; the internet, social media, and dating apps have allowed LGBT+ people to connect with relative safety, while tolerance and acceptance grow in societies across the globe. Of course, this is not true of all societies, and in such places even the internet and dating apps may not be safe to use. For this reason, we are choosing to only focus on examples from the past and from countries already on the path to LGBT+ liberation. Let us know of anything you think should be included!
Flowers
Much like the rainbow flag or the handkerchief system, certain flowers have been used to identify an LGBT+ community, or conversely, secretly signal an LGBT+ identity. Some of the most well-known events in LGBT+ history reference flowers, from the Lavender Menace protest and the Lavender Scare persecutions to Oscar Wilde’s green carnations.
Sarah Prager at JSTOR explored this phenomenon in a recent blog post. Violets in particular hold significant symbolism:
““In the 1926 play The Captive, one female character sends bunches of violets to another female character, perhaps referencing Sappho. The theme of lesbianism in this play led to an uproar and calls for a boycott and for censorship. The New York City district attorney’s office eventually gave in to these calls and shut down the production in 1927. The association of violets with lesbianism from this play led to plummeting violet sales at U.S. florists. However, at showings in Paris, some women wore the flower on their lapels as a show of support.””
Allegedly, women in the 1900s would given other women bouquets of violets to express interested in pursuing a romantic relationship.
Green carnations reached similar heights when friends of Oscar Wilde were encouraged to wear green carnations to the opening night of Lady Windermere’s Fan. According to Prager, this started a trend in which men who loved men wore green carnations on their lapels as a signal to other queer men. And of course, lavender is one of the most associated flowers - or potentially colours - associated with the LGBT+ community, with Prager calling it ‘inseparable from queerness’.
Monocles
Le Monocle was a lesbian club in Paris that was open from the 1920s to the 1930s, prior to the invasion of Nazi Germany. Whether the name was inspired by the attire of patrons wearing suits and monocles, or the style was inspired by the name, isn’t quite clear - but we know that the practice was referenced in Germany too. Both bars closed due to Nazi policy and persecution.
Lavender languages
We covered this in another post, but if there was someone you were interested in and suspected was also LGBT+, one sure way of determining would be to use a slang or cant that someone would only know if they ran in the same circles. Check out the video of two men speaking Polari on the Lavender Languages page.