André Ventura took a “gay carnation” to the 25th of April celebrations

Chega deputies used, during the 25th of April celebrations, green carnations – a homosexual symbol popularized in the 19th century in London and Paris.

“It is green carnation is the symbol of our emigrant community around the world”, he stated Andre Venturain the speech made on Saturday at the Assembly of the Republic.

However, the most attentive and educated soon remembered that the green carnation is an LGBT+ symbol.

This is the case of what explains, in an article, that, in the 19th century, when homosexuality was illegal, wearing one of those flowers in one’s lapel was a code between men who were attracted to other men.

The morning newspaper, citing the Scottish museum V&A Dundee, details that the symbol gained meaning when Oscar Wilde asked his friends to wear green carnations on the lapel, on the piece Lady Windemere’s Fan, em 1892.

Since then, the green carnation began to be a prop for the playwright himself. Other than that, it was already seen a lot in Paris and was seen as a secret code.

“The green carnation was symbolic — an artificially colored flower that represented the taste for the artificial and the ‘unnatural’” – as the relationship between people of the same sex was (and still is, by some) considered -, explains the historian Andrew Learthe page

“Like many elements of LGBT+ history — especially in periods when same-sex love was illegal and dangerous — the green carnation works more like a suggestion or clue than an explicit symbol”, warns the expert.