A Pride poppy released in remembrance of LGBTQ+ soldiers has caused a storm on Twitter.
The incident began with a tweet by a woman named Cassie, who said that because the LGBTQ+ community has an entire month dedicated to their cause, "the heroes that fought for our country [should] have ONE day to be remembered without it being about sexuality."
The Pride poppies which have been released ahead of Remembrance Sunday on November 10 are unofficial merchandise.
In the video below, a thug threatens a gay man because of his Pride outfit:One Twitter user named Becky shared a picture of the Pride poppy, writing that they had purchased it "to remember the gay soldiers ONLY".
But many Twitter users supported Cassie's sentiment, and prior to making her account private, her original post had been liked more than 39K times.
Another Twitter user named Colin pointed out that Becky's post implied that only gay soldiers were worthy of remembrance:
The sale of these unofficial LGBTQ+ poppies does not raise money for ex-servicemen charity the Royal British Legion, which is what the sale of the traditional red poppies are used for.
However, not all respondents were against the LGBTQ+ poppy, with one pointing out that "if you are complaining about the rainbow poppy, but kept quiet about the black, purple, white or any other variation of (e.g. breast cancer) poppies, get in the bin."
Another Twitter user drew attention to the fact that this is not the first variant of the red poppy, with "purple poppies to remember animal victims of war, black to remember African and Caribbean communities and white for pacifists who died... Rejecting a rainbow poppy is bigoted and that's facts."
In an interview with the Sun, the Royal British Legion said that no official changes have been made to the poppy: "We can confirm we have not altered our red two petal poppy or issued a rainbow poppy.
"The red poppy recognizes the service and sacrifice of people from all communities who have served with the British Armed Forces including those from the LGBTQ+ community."