The Homophobic Climate Index: Estimating Homophobia in 158 Countries

Lamontagne et al. (2018) developed the Homphobic Climate Index including aspects such as institutional (e.g. laws that criminalise same-sex relations) and social (acceptance of homosexuality in population) homophobia. 158 countries - ranging from Sweden to Sudan - were ranked based on how homophobic or gay-friendly they were. The most inclusive countries were Uruguay and countries located in Western Europe. Latin America appeared as a region fighting homophobia, and in Africa, South Africa and Cabo Verde were the most inclusive ones.

The ten most homophobic countries were (in the following order): Sudan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan, Qatar, Nigeria, Guinea, Iraq, Burundi, Chad. The ten most inclusive countries were: Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Finland, Belgium, France, Uruguay, United Kingdom.

The authors found some interesting correlations. For instance, a 10% change in GDP per capita was associated with a 1% reduction in the index. Also, a higher homophobic climate was correlated with lower life expectancy among men as well as with social inequalities, such as gender equality (measured by share of parliamentary seats held by women) and the abuse of human rights.

- - - - - - - - - -

- Lamontagne, E., d'Elbée, M., Ross, M. W., Carroll, A., du Plessis, A. & Loures, L. (2018). A sociological measurement of homophobia for all countries and its public health impact. European Journal of Public Health, 28(5), 96-972, link
- photograph by Diane Arbus via

That one can love another...

"That one can love another of the same gender, that is what the homophobe really cannot stand."

Stephen Fry

photograph by Garry Winogrand via

From Ridiculous to Cruel ... Conversion Therapy

Albert von Schrenck-Notzing (1862-1929) was specialised in the hypnotic treatment of so-called sexual deviations such as homosexuality which he thought was mainly caused by a pathological weakness to resist the deviant urge that was acquired and hence could be cured - by hypnotherapy, for instance (Sommer, 2012). In 1899, he allegedly turned a gay man straight through hypnosis and by taking him to the brothel a couple of times. Eugen Steinach's (1861-1944) approach was different. According to his theory, homosexuality was rooted in a man's testicles, the cure: testicle transplantations, i.e., castrating a gay man and replacing his testicles with "heterosexual ones" (via and via).



Some of the scientifically dubious, ethically irresponsible and appalling therapies, ranging from ridiculous to cruel, were or are: electroconvulsive therapy, lobotomies, shock through electrodes combined with hired sex workers and hetereosexual pornography, aversion therapy (taking chemicals that make you vomit while looking at photographs of your lover or electrical shocks to the genitals while watching gay pornography, inducing nausea or paralysis, snapping an elastic band around the wrist when becoming aroused to same-sex erotic images, orgasmic reconditioning, etc.), changing thought patterns, social reinforcement to increase other-sex sexual behaviours, praying at gay conversion camps, and many more (via).



"I didn’t start coming out until I was in college. I went to a Christian college, where I was actually outed by my roommate. So I was placed in conversion therapy by the university, and I had to undergo a lot of different interventions with different departments at the school. They did exorcisms with holy water, kind of baptizing to try and get the demon out. For one of my classes I had to write a paper talking about why I was going to Hell for being gay." 

Brooke, 25, New Mexico

"My last year in college I did one-on-one therapy — during that, I was encouraged to look at straight porn quite often, which was also strange to me. It was against the rules, but they were like, “It’s to make you straight. You’re the exception to the rule.” I had been raised to believe that porn is horrible and awful and terrible, but they were like, “No, we need you to watch straight porn, and specifically focus on the vagina and whatnot, and how it would feel to be in a vagina.” It made porn so awkward. Not that porn isn’t already awkward to some extent, but it’s getting analytical about it. Every week and they’d be like, “Did you look at porn? Did you enjoy it?”" 

Samuel, 28, Washington State

“We were searching for a sin I’d supposedly committed in a past life that might have ‘made me gay.’” 

a survivor from the United Kingdom

“As an adolescent who experienced same-sex attraction, she was raped in her bedroom by an elderly man her mother had brought home from church one evening in 2005. The mother, who heard her daughter’s screams, shouted: ‘Pearl, you are making noise. Shut up.’ [...] This happened regularly over several months until, eventually, the mother asked him to move in and be Pearl’s husband. ‘He raped me almost every day from when I was 12 to 16 years old. My mother didn’t want me to be gay so she asked him to be my husband and hoped it would change me.’” 

a survivor from South Africa

"Being brought up in a Christian fundamentalist family, I knew from the get-go that I was not going to be accepted. A big part of my conversion therapy happened within my own family walls. The church played a big role, too. There was one really abusive act, where three ministers held me down for six and a half hours and were screaming in my face, trying to get the gayness out of me. I asked them, “Does this mean that I’m not going to be gay anymore?” They were like, “Yes.” I was like, “Wait a minute, so that means I’ll no longer be attracted to women?” They were like, “Yes. Well, there is this thing called gaydar …” — some parts of the church believe gaydar is the ability to see a demon in another person. Seriously. When I started questioning this probably about five and a half hours into this process, I realized their logic didn’t make sense. The person who has become my wife was in my life at that point, and I knew that what they were saying didn’t add up. I really did love her, so it was at that moment I stopped this process. I walked out the door. They screamed at me, “You’ve chosen Hell.” Then I left the church for about a decade." 

Jane, 38, US

- - - - - - - - - - -
- American Psychological Association (2009).Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation, LINK
- International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (2020). It's Torture Not Therapy. A Global Overview of Converion Therapy: Practices, Perpetrators, and the Role of States, LINK
- Sommer, A. (2012). Policing Epistemic Deviance: Albert von Schreck-Notzing and Albert Moll. Medical History, 56(2), 255-276.
- image (Ratched, scene showing hydrotherapy to "cure" a lesbian woman) via

"In the end, it all comes down to what kind of world we want."

At times, some critics have said my comedy risks reinforcing old stereotypes. The truth is I've been passionate about challenging bigotry and intolerance throughout my life. As a comedian, I have tried to use my characters to get people to let down their guard and reveal what they actually believe, including their own prejudice. Borat did reveal people's indifference to antisemitism. When as Bruno, the gay fashion reporter from Austria, I started kissing a man in a cage fight in Arkansas nearly starting a riot, it showed the violent potential of homophobia. And when disguiised as a ultra woke developer I proposed building a mosque in one rural community prompting a resident to proudly admit "I am racist against Muslims", it showed the growing acceptance of islamophobia.



Today, around the world demagogues appeal to our worst instincts. Conspiracy theories once confined to the fringe are going mainstream. It's as if the age of reason, the era of evidential argument is ending and our knowledge is increasingly delegitimised and scientific consensus is dismissed. Democracy, which depends on shared truths is in retreat and autocracy, which depends on shared lies, is on the march. Hate crimes are surging as are murderous attacks on religious and ethnic minorities. Fake news outperforms real news because studies show that lies spread faster than truth. On the internet, everything can appear equally legitimate. The rantings of a lunatic seems as credible as the findings of a Nobel Prize winner. Voltaire was right when he said "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

In the end, it all comes down to what kind of world we want. If we prioritise truth over lies, tolerance over prejudice, empathy over indifference, and experts over ignoranuses, then maybe, just maybe, we can save democracy. We can still have a place for free speech and free expression, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Today these rights are threatened by hate, conspiracy and lies. So allow me to leave you with a suggestion for a different aim for society. The ultimate aim of society should be to make sure that people are not targeted, not harassed and not murdered because of who they are, where they come from, who they love or how they pray.
Sacha Baron Cohen 

::: Full speech: LISTEN/WATCH  

- - - - -
photograph via

F You (Lily Allen, 2009)

Look inside
Look inside your tiny mind
Now look a bit harder
'Cause we're so uninspired, so sick and tired of all the hatred you harbor



So you say
It's not okay to be gay
Well I think you're just evil
You're just some racist who can't tie my laces
Your point of view is medieval



F you F you very, very much
'Cause we hate what you do
And we hate your whole crew
So please don't stay in touch

F you F you very, very much
'Cause your words don't translate
And it's getting quite late
So please don't stay in touch

Do you get
Do you get a little kick out of being slow-minded?
You want to be like your father
It's approval you're after
Well that's not how you find it

Do you
Do you really enjoy living a life that's so hateful?
'Cause there's a hole where your soul should be
You're losing control of it and it's really distasteful ...

lyrics via

- - - - - - -

More Lily Allen on YouTube:

::: The Fear: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Smile: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Not Fair: LISTEN/WATCH
::: As Long As I Got You: LISTEN/WATCH

- - - - - - -

image via

Mina, Unmarried Couples, Illegitimate Children, Divorce, and the Parental Alienation Syndrome

Mina (Anna Maria Mazzini) is an Italian singer, "known for her three-octave vocal range, the agility of her soprano voice, and her image as an emancipated woman" (via).



In the early 1960s, Mina was banned from TV and radio in Catholic Italy for two years because of her relationship with Corrado Pani, a married actor (who had been separated from his wife, divorce was not yet possible) and their son born out of wedlock. Her record sales, however, were not affected by the ban and the Italian public broadcasting service RAI had to end the ban due to public demand (via). In 1963, their son Massimiliano was born. They could, however, not live together as a family as this would have meant breaking the law against concubinage and risking two years in prison (via).

"After the ban, the public broadcasting service RAI tried to continue to prohibit her songs, which were forthright in dealing with subjects such as religion, smoking and sex. Mina's cool act combined sex appeal with public smoking, dyed blonde hair, and shaved eyebrows to create a "bad girl" image." Wikipedia

Divorce was finally legalised in Italy in 1970 (via). Fast forward a couple of decades, and Italy's government wants to introduce divorce law reforms that are seen as a threat to women's rights, autonomy, and emancipation, and have been criticised by the United Nations. The bill was proposed by conservative senator Pillon of the "hardline anti-immigration party" Lega, a man who also happens to be against gay marriage, same-sex parents and abortion, and a mediator. The bill requires all couples wanting a divorce with children to use a professional mediator (via). Pillon is one of the organisers of "Family Day", an anti-gay event that takes place every year and campaigns against the so-called "gay lobby". Pillon's next step will be "proposing a law that would punish women who accuse their husbands of domestic violence if the husbands are not convicted" and to make abortion illegal (via). With the bill, he says, he only thinks of the child, adding: "Away with maintenance cheques, away with the ideological battle of women against men." (via).



"In Italy’s conservative society, less than 50 percent of women work outside of the home, and most of the burden of child-rearing falls upon mothers. Because women with children struggle to find stable employment, critics argue that the abolition of child support would raise the poverty rate among divorced mothers and could make them unable to provide for their children. Critics fear that the bill could encourage women to stay in abusive marriages rather than opting for a divorce with no child support.
The proposed law also endorses the disputed notion of Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), a term first coined in the 1980s by American psychiatrist Richard Gardner. PAS holds that a parent can belittle or bad-mouth the other parent to the point that their child becomes hostile and no longer wants to spend time with them. But PAS is not listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and the American Psychological Association has “no official position” on whether the syndrome is real, citing a lack of evidence that supports its existence.
Critics worry that claims of PAS could be used to strip custody from mothers or even be used in court to deflect attention from abusive parents. Evidence from the United States also suggests that PAS has been disproportionately used against women: According to a 2017 examination of 238 U.S. court cases involving alienation claims, fathers not only made the vast majority of alienation claims but also won their cases at a much higher rate than women making claims against men.
“Fathers who alleged alienation were more than twice as likely to receive a custody outcome in their favor as mothers who alleged alienation,” read the paper, which was published in Law & Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice, a law journal at the University of Minnesota Law School."
Anna Momigliano

“If a child says ‘I do not want to see my father, I am worried’, they will immediately analyse the mother for alienation syndrome and if the judge thinks they have been manipulated [the children] go to another family,” Ms Pirrone said.
All over the world, it has been proved it is a constructed syndrome – lots of psychologists say it is not scientific and now it is set to be in law.
It creates this prejudice against the mother and it is clear it will disregard domestic violence because the judges are forced to follow certain procedures and rules as this law is very strict. It means judges can’t do their job properly. They recognise that after 30 years domestic violence is being viewed as a serious issue and they are trying to push it back into the silence with a very threatening law.
This law is not even trying to hide its intent. It is against women. He has a very clear ideology and this is a very ideological law. It is punishing the woman and it is pushing them back into a very dependent situation where they are not able to take autonomous decisions or get away from a bad situation.”
Maya Oppenheim

Mina on YouTube:

::: Parole, Parole: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Io vivrò senza te (1972): WATCH/LISTEN
::: C'è più samba: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Non credere (1969): WATCH/LISTEN
::: Un bacio è troppo poco: WATCH/LISTEN
::: L'ultima occasione: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Conversazione: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Se c'è una cosa che mi fa impazzire: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Sono come tu mi vuoi: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Se telefonando: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Mai così: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Città vuota: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Fly me to the moon: WATCH/LISTEN
::: No: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Mi sei scoppiato dentro al cuore: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Non credere (1970): WATCH/LISTEN
::: L'immensità: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Something: LISTEN
::: Un colpo al cuore (1970): WATCH/LISTEN and (1968): WATCH/LISTEN
::: La banda: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Non illuderti: WATCH/LISTEN

- - - - - - - - - - -
photographs via and via and via

(Un-)Quoting Jair Bolsonaro

"I've got five kids but on the fifth I had a moment of weakness and it came out a woman."
Congresswoman Rosario is "not worth raping; she is very ugly."
"I wouldn't rape you because you don't deserve it." (watch from minute 1.05 how he continues insulting her)
Jair Bolsonaro



"Because women get more labor rights than men, meaning they get maternity leave, the employer prefers to hire men. I would not employ (a woman) with the same salary (of a man). But there are many women who are competent."
Jair Bolsonaro

"I visited a quilombo and the least heavy afro-descendant weighed seven arrobas. They don't do anything! They are not even good for procreation."
Jair Bolsonaro

Interviewer: "If your son was in love with a black woman, what would you do?"
"I will not discuss promiscuity with anyone. There's no risk of that because my sons are well raised."
Jair Bolsonaro

"The scum of the earth is showing up in Brazil, as if we didn't have enough problems of our own to sort out."
Jair Bolsonaro

"I would be incapable of loving a homosexual son."
I'd rather my son "died in an accident than showed up with some bloke with a moustache."
Jair Bolsonaro

"We, the Brazilian people, don't like the homosexuals. Your culture is different from ours. In Brazil, we are not ready yet because no father is proud of having a gay son. Pride? Organising a party because there's a gay son in the family?"
"When your son starts getting a bit gay you slap him, and he changes his behaviour, OK?"
Jair Bolsonaro

"I am in favour of torture, you know that. And the people are in favour as well."
"Elections won't change anything in this country. It will only change on the day that we break out in civil war here and do the job that the military regime didn't do: killing 30,000. If some innocent people die, that's fine. In every war, innocent people die."
Jair Bolsonaro

Bolsonaro won Brazil's presidency. Trump, Salvini, and Le Pen congratulated him (via) while human rights groups put out statements and chief justice of the Supreme Court read out the part of the constitution reminding Brazil that the "future president must respect institutions, must respect democracy, the rule of law, the judiciary branch, the national Congress and the legislative branch" (via).

- - - - - - -
- photograph via
Interesting:
- Remembering Brazil's decades of military repression, BBC
- In Brazil, nostalgia grows for the dictatorship - not the brutality, Washington Post
- Brazil president weeps as he unveils report on military dictatorship's abuse, The Guardian
- The Brazilian Military Regime, 1964-1985, Oxford Research Encyclopedias

Naughty Homophones

homophone, definition:
1. Phonetics. a word pronounced the same as another but differing in meaning, whether spelled the same way or not, as heir and air.
2. a written element that represents the same spoken unit as another, as ks, a homophone of x in English.
(dictionary)



Tim Torkildson was a teacher in Provo, Utah. He was also an education blogger. On his weblog, he wrote a posting about homophones ... and was fired by the owner of the language school he was working for. Homophones would be associated with homosexuality, some students could become offended or think the school had a "gay agenda". The teacher could not be trusted to write a regular blog. That was in 2014 (via and via and via).

- - - - - -
photograph by Robert Doisneau via

"The work is dark, and it's dark on purpose."

Sean Coyle's project "Cruising Wonderland" is a memorial to sites of homophobic hate crimes in Australia and New Zealand. Coyle chose to print most of his work on metal, a glossy surface that makes visitors of his exhibition see themselves reflected into the work.

"The work is dark, and it's dark on purpose. Not just thematically dark, but the works are actually dark to see—so that they sort of just appear out of darkness, and I think that's really important for the work and in thinking about it. For me, lightness means clarity, and because I don't have that much clarity on the reasons behind why these things happen, the darkness is a really important aspect of it. Highlighting the dark history, for me, in particular the queer dark history in Australasia, I think is important. They become memorials, and it's important for us to remember. To remember our histories and move forward."
Sean Coyle



"I photographed this toilet block in Hamilton, where a man was stabbed in the back by another man. The attacker also stabbed another man in a different toilet block as well. In court, he said he wanted to rid the world of homosexuals."
Sean Coyle



"I was looking at the history of New South Wales in Australia, which has a horrific history of homophobic violence, especially in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. I was looking at where that had happened, and the cliffs of Bondi were one of the significant sites. A number of men were thrown off the cliffs, and it was ignored by police or just treated as a suicide. Multiple men this happened to, and they didn't think to connect the dots."
Sean Coyle



Photographs by Sean Coyle via

Homophobia and Latent Homosexuality

"The roots of homophobia are fear. Fear and more fear."
George Weinberg

“I coined the word homophobia to mean it was a phobia about homosexuals….It was a fear of homosexuals which seemed to be associated with a fear of contagion, a fear of reducing the things one fought for—home and family. It was a religious fear and it had led to great brutality as fear always does.”
George Weinberg (cited in Herek, 2004)

"When a phobia incapacitates a person from engaging in activities considered decent by society, the person himself is the sufferer….But here the phobia appears as antagonism directly toward a particular group of people. Inevitably, it leads to disdain toward the people themselves, and to mistreatment of them. The phobia in operation is a prejudice, and this means we can widen our understanding by considering the phobia from the point of view of its being a prejudice and then uncovering its motives." George Weinberg (cited in Herek, 2004)

In 1972, psychologist George Weinberg introduced the term "homophobia", a term that challenged the traditional way of thinking about the so-called problem of homosexuality, a term that helped shift society's attention on the real problem of prejudice and stigma by locating the problem not in homosexual people but in intolerant hetereosexuals.

"Weinberg gave a name to the hostility and helped popularize the belief that it constituted a social problem worthy of scholarly analysis and intervention. His term became an important tool for gay and lesbian activists, advocates, and their allies." (Herek, 2004)

What is the motivation behind being homophobic? Based on people's scores on the Index of Homophobia, Adams et al. assigned indivuals to a group of homophobic men vs. a group of nonhomophobic men. Men of both groups were exposed to sexually explicit (hetereosexual and male homesexual) erotic stimuli while changes in penile circumference were monitored. Results indicated that those who score in the homophobic range and admit negative affect toward homosexuality "demonstrate significant sexual arousal to male homosexual erotic stimuli". Nonhomophobic men, however, show no significant increase in penile response to homosexual stimuli. Explanations vary from latent homesexuality to anxiety enhancing arousal (Adams et al., 1996).

"Although the causes of homophobia are unclear, several psychoanalytic explanations have emerged from the idea of homophobia as an anxiety-based phenomenon. One psychoanalytic explanation is that anxiety about the possibility of being or becoming a homosexual may be a major factor in homophobia (West, 1977). For example, de Kuyper (1993) has asserted that homophobia is the result of the remnants of homosexuality in the heterosexual resolution of the Oedipal conflict. Whereas these notions are vague, psychoanalytic theories usually postulate that homophobia is a result of repressed homosexual urges or a form of latent homosexuality. Latent homosexuality can be defined as homosexual arousal which the individual is either unaware of or denies (West, 1977 ). Psychoanalysts use the concept of repressed or latent homosexuality to explain the emotional malaise and irrational attitudes displayed by some individuals who feel guilty about their erotic interests and struggle to deny and repress homosexual impulses. In fact, West ( 1977, p. 202) stated, 'when placed in a situation that threatens to excite their own unwanted homosexual thoughts, they overreact with panic or anger.'" (Adams et al., 1996)

"Some phobias, such as the fear of squares or of trains, are acquired only in later life, while others, the fear of darkness, storms and animals, exist from the very beginning. The former signify serious illness, the latter appear rather as peculiarities, moods."
Sigmund Freud, General Theory of the Neuroses; Fear and Anxiety

Related posting:
- The -ism Series (8): Heterosexism



- Adams, H. E., Wright, L. W. & Lohr, B. A. (1996). Is Homophobia Associated With Homosexual Arousal? Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 105(3), 440-445.
- Herek, G. M. (2004). Beyond "Homophobia": Thinking About Sexual Prejudice and Stigma in the Twenty-First Century. Journal of NSRC, 6-24.
- Williams, M. (2008). Homosexuality Anxiety: A Misunderstood Form of OCD. Leading-Edge Health Education Issues, 195-205.
- Photographs of Michel Serrault (1928-2007) and Ugo Tognazzi (1922-1990) (La cage aux folles) via and via and via and via

International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia

The day "was created in 2004 to draw the attention of policymakers, opinion leaders, social movements, the public and the media to the violence and discrimination experienced by LGBTI people internationally. Since then the Day has grown in both scope and depth. In 2013, actions around the International Day Against Homophobia & Transphobia took place in almost 120 countries. In the United Kingdom alone in 2013, almost 200 events took place around the Day (...). The date of May 17th was specifically chosen to commemorate the World Health Organization’s decision in 1990 to declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder. The International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia has received official recognition from several States and such international institutions as the European Parliament, and by countless local authorities. Most United Nations agencies also mark the Day with specific events." (literally via)



When the Austrian bearded drag queen Conchita Wurst - attacked by transphobic and homophobic slurs for weeks (via) - won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2014, she said she felt that Europe had taken a stand by voting her for winner. With 290 points, she was a clear winner. Wurst: "I dream of a world where we don't have to talk about unnecessary things like sexuality, who you love. I felt like tonight Europe showed that we are a community of respect and tolerance." (via) 
"The beard is a statement to say that you can achieve anything, no matter who you are or how you look." (via). While some people reacted with "shaving selfies" because they were afraid beards had become "unmanly" (via) others painted beards to show their support. Cher and Elton John sent messages of support (via), Cardinal Schönborn (Archbishop of Vienna) expressed his happiness about Conchita winning and pointed out that there is "colourful diversity in God's colourful garden" and that "each individual deserves respect" (via).

"Human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent - when one right is violated, all others become vulnerable." 
Excerpt from the (beautiful) message from Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia (2014)

"(...) we recommit ourselves to the fundamental belief that all people should be treated equally, that they should have the opportunity to reach their fullest potential, and that no one should face violence or discrimination -- no matter who they are or whom they love. (...) we call on partners everywhere to join us in defending the equal rights of our LGBT brothers and sisters, and in ensuring they are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve."
Excerpt from Barack Obama's statement on the occasion of the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia (2014)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
photo of Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon via

Pansy

pansy ('pænzi) n., pl. -sies. 1. any violaceous garden plant that is a variety of Viola tricolor, having flowers with rounded velvety petals, white, yellow, or purple in colour. See also wild pansy. 2. Slang. an effeminate or homosexual man or boy. 3. a. a strong violet colour. b. (as adj.: a pansy carpet. [C15: from Old French pensée thought, from penser to think, from Latin pensare]



Eight years ago, Paul Harfleet started The Pansy Project. Since then, he has been planting flowers at sites of homophobic crimes in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Istanbul, New York City, Berlin, Graz and many more. Thousands of pansies have been planted, many of them in cities where homophobic crime has risen.
Harfleet describes the cathartic effect of this very project. The public nature of these incidents was a crucial aspect as the crimes often occurred during the day in full view of passers by. He was interested in the memories he would associate with the locations and wanted to manipulate the associations. When he planted his first pansy, his feelings towards the location changed. Harfleet says he overlayed the memory with something positive.

Whitechapel Road, London


Hurst Street, Birmingham


Upper Brook Street, Manchester

Herrengasse, Graz


Definition from: Collins English Dictionary, 3rd edition, Harpers Collins Publishers
Information and photos via The Pansy Project, The Pansy Project Blog, The Huffington Post and BBC