Transbian Pride Flag

Adapted from original. [transcript: 5 horizontal stripes colored with cyan, pink, white, orange, and hot pink. end ID]

Transbian: describing a transgender lesbian.

It’s #LesbianVisibilityDay!

Did you know violet flowers used to be a lesbian symbol?

Often featured in Greek poet Sappho’s writings, violets also made a comeback in the 1927 Broadway play, “The Captive,“ about two lesbians, where one woman sends a bouquet of violets to her lover. There was so much public uproar about the play that protestors and police shut down the final performance in France. But the violet became known as the "lesbian flower,” and supporters of the play would wear them in their lapels, or as a subtle symbol to other women that they were gay.

What little LGBTQ+ “symbols” do you wear today - rainbow shoelaces, lesbian flag-colored phone background? Also…can we make violets A Thing again?

Linda Riley, LGBT+ activist, publisher and CEO of DIVA magazine and the founder of Lesbian Visibility Week, noted the way JK Rowling had supported the anti-trans hate group LGB Alliance during the Lesbian Visibility Week. 

Riley tweeted:  

“Wow! I certainly did not create Lesbian Visibility Week so that people like JK Rowling could use it as a vehicle to stir up more hate within our community.

Remember: Most lesbians, including their activists, support trans people.

The LGBT+ site Pink News published a list of 21 lesbians who are making the world a better place, Linda Riley (photo below) being one of them. 

To Advocate Riley says:

I had noticed that more and more, the L in LGBTQ+ was becoming particularly marginalized. I am a proud cis lesbian and a proud trans ally. But many in the LGBTQ+ community were beginning to equate cis lesbians with transphobes, which is fundamentally untrue. I wanted to help create a narrative that shows once and for all that the vast majority of cis lesbians are inclusive. We are intersectional. We want to remove any negative connotations associated with that word. So this is why during Lesbian Visibility Week we celebrate and center all lesbians, both cis and trans, while also showing solidarity with all LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary people.