Remembering the LGBTQ Fallen

It's that time of year when poppy rage begins. If you're not wearing a poppy, if you are wearing a poppy, if your poppy isn't worn in the correct way or the correct place, someone, somewhere will find a problem. This year, however, it seems to be the LGBTQ community who are facing the backlash of poppy rage. Normally, it's the innocent Muslim community who face the wrath of angry, cis-het, white men of a certain age but this year, a rainbow poppy was revealed and all hell broke loose.

Bearing in mind this rainbow poppy existed on a single listing on an online shopping website. It is since gone and rainbow poppies are impossible to get hold of, but we know these people are like a dog with a bone and won't let it go. Now the gays have ruined Remembrance Day by making it all about them, apparently.

Soz huns, I'm here to set the record straight:

LGBTQ people served in the armed forces. This is a fact. We have always existed and we will continue to exist. That is a fact. It is also a fact that in World War One and World War Two it was illegal to be homosexual. People found "guilty" of this "crime" were imprisoned at best. Back then it was classed as a perversion, a mental illness and they believed it could be cured. Now, we know better.

Those LGBTQ people who fought for our country did so, hiding their true selves because what awaited them was horrendous if they dared to be open about their feelings. These people faced the horrors of war, they faced disgusting conditions and witnessed things no human being should ever have to see...and they were still denied their right to love and to share the better moments of life with someone because they were deemed dirty and immoral. They suffered doubly because their heterosexual counterparts could go home to wives and families if they survived. They could return to support and love. Our LGBTQ family of the time could not. They returned to a life of pain and suffering and hiding.

Some of the greatest accounts of the trenches and the horrors of war were written by gay men. Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen were two of the most famous. Of course there were countless others too. Those whose names we will never know but we wish we did. Those young lives cut tragically short. Should we deny these people the chance to be honoured? Should we simply erase them from history?

Wilfred Owen (left) and Siegfried Sassoon (right)

Alan Turing practically won us the war with his Enigma Machine. He was repaid, not by being glorified and hailed as a hero, but by being chemically castrated and forced to endure torture at the hands of those whose lives he had saved. Why? Because they found out he was gay! They put him through hell until he committed suicide. His story is a powerful one. One that stands to serve as a stark reminder of the cruelty that pervades society if homophobia is accepted.

Alan Turing, creator of the Enigma Machine

I say let us have the rainbow poppy. Let us respect our fallen LGBTQ family along with all the others who suffered. Let us use the rainbow poppy to reflect on how far we've come and how far we still need to go. We have white poppies for pacifists, purple poppies for the animal victims of war and black poppies to represent the BAME community. Why can't we also honour LGBTQ people?

Various coloured poppies that are available to wear

It is not about "making it all about us," it's about showing respect to people whose lives were not respected when they were here. It's about us giving thanks for their sacrifice to protect our freedom and remembering the awful world they lived in so that we can strive to never go back to that. We don't wish to hijack Remembrance Day, rather put an end to the gay erasure which plagues history and has straight-washed everything so that a lot of LGBTQ achievement, etc, is lost, forgotten and covered up. We only need to look at the recent discovery that the "Lovers of Modena" were men and the reaction that incited in historians. The claim they were family or close friends, instead of remaining lovers.

LGBTQ people deserve to celebrate/mourn/pay respect to our own community and keep their memories alive as much as we would celebrate/mourn/pay respect to any heterosexual individual but sadly homophobes won't allow us to do that and instead demonise us for wanting to. I guess we can take the small consolation that these outraged idiots will eventually be in the minority but it is only through visibility that we can begin to change attitudes.