If you have been keeping up with this Fiesta (shout out if you have!) then you'll be more than familiar with the rainbow flag most associated with the LGBTQ+ community. But did you know there are other symbols within the LGBTQ+ community that you might not have heard of yet?

For example, what do Greek symbols and red neckties have to do with LGBTQ+? Well, you'll be surprised!

Green carnations were worn by homosexual men. 

Oscar Wilde, a prominent Victorian playwright, was persecuted and exiled for being open about his attraction to other men, but was also known to have worn a green carnation on his lapel.

Following his imprisonment, homosexual men in Victorian times often wore green carnations in a similar fashion. 

Women gave violets to express their interest in another woman. 

In a poem written by Sappho, an archaic poet from the island of Lesbos, she describes her lover as wearing a crown of violets. In ode to this lyric, lesbians and bisexual women have often chosen to show their affection for another woman by offering them a bouquet of violets. 

Homosexual men in the professional world wore red neckties. 

To signal their identity as homosexual men to other men who may identify the same way, professionals in the early 20th Century wore a red necktie. It is considered one source of what later became known as "the handkerchief code", in which wearing certain colored handkerchiefs on particular areas of the body signalled to others in the homosexual/bisexual male community what their preferences are. 

Asexuals wearing black rings on their fingers. 

Wearing a black ring on the middle finger of the right hand is a common way for asexual people to identify themselves. It isn't specified what the ring should look like or be made of, only that it is mostly black. The reason a ring is chosen is that the O shape of the band represents asexuality (and also agenderism), and coincides with the asexual pride flag, where black represents the asexuality spectrum. 

Denoting the LGBTQ+ movement with lambda.   

In physics, the Greek character 'lambda' denotes a change in energy and witnessing it as such. In 1974, it was decided that the symbology of this character should denote the LGBTQ+ movement and the marked changes it was making to LGBTQ+ people's lives. 

Many campaigns and organisations in support of the community and its visibility adopt lambda into their name and logos. 

We hope you enjoyed this little guide, but there are many more symbols yet to come. Keep up with this pride Fiesta to find out what they are, coming soon!