Tarot is a Way for LGBTQ+ People to Come Home

Since the turn of the millennium, tarot cards have skyrocketed in popularity, going from an item found in niche metaphysical shops to taking up a whole aisle at Barnes & Noble. They are used as a fun party activity and a collector’s item. These cards also have a deeper history and meaning for many people, especially LGBTQ+ folks. For us, tarot can be a way to come home.

Tarot and its uses

The history of tarot cards, from use as playing cards to a storytelling tool to mystical applications, is heavily contentious. I won’t expound on that history here, except to say one thing: tarot cards have been intrinsically linked to LGBTQ+ people for a very long time. 

As explained in that link, the artist behind arguably the most influential tarot deck, the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, was very likely a queer woman. Even while certain mystical traditions shunned queer and trans members, they used tools and techniques developed by us. 

To many people, tarot is a symbol of divination, or the act of telling the future. Indeed, this is a popular use for the cards, and many fortune tellers use them as part of their practice. Tarot cards can be used to seek answers to questions about what challenges to expect or what job offer to accept. 

Another use of the cards, championed heavily by Rachel Pollack, is as a tool for self-exploration and discovery. Rather than telling the future, tarot readings can be used to gain a deeper understanding of the self, to unravel mysteries we have trouble breaking down on our own. 

I want to make it clear that tarot can be both a spiritual and secular practice. The self-exploration it encourages can be used to deepen spiritual relationships or as more of a mental health tool, or both. Regardless of tarot’s roots, it is impossible to disentangle these twin uses in current practice. 

Many practitioners do not view the cards as mystical wells of endless information. Instead, they are a tool that help us access the wisdom and knowledge we already have, as well as receiving guidance from the world around us. They may be magically charged, but a successful reading requires our own energies as well. It is this accessing of an internal self that can be world-changing for LGBTQ+ readers. 

Home and belonging for LGBTQ+ folks 

It is no secret that queer and trans people often have more fraught relationships with the idea of home. Many of us grow up in homes and families of origin that can be ignorant of, or even hostile towards, our identities. We may have more of a struggle feeling like we belong in an environment that does not understand us. 

This can extend beyond the immediate family, too. Growing up in a cisheteronormative culture steeped in homo- and transphobia means that many LGBTQ+ folks feel unsafe in their environment. Even if home feels like a safe space, the rest of our community spaces may not. 

Eventually, this leads to many queer and trans folks not feeling a specific sense of attachment to their “home.” Many of us feel unmoored, without roots to return to. Or we may have a sense of home, but still feel like something is missing.

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In a situation without a comforting home, the only thing we can do is find or make those homes for ourselves. People familiar with tarot may be aware of the classic gender binarism in much tarot thought, but, as I’ve written about before, this binarism is not as pervasive as we think and can be interpreted in many different ways. Thus, LGBTQ+ folks can find a seemingly unlikely home in the comforting realm of tarot. 

Home through (and in) tarot 

Creating home is no simple task. It involves a lot of soul-searching and self understanding to know what, and who, is most important to you. This is where tarot cards can be a huge boon, helping you explore parts of yourself that you’ve always kept hidden. The more you converse with these parts on your own, the easier it will get to show them to others and find people who are excited to hold those parts of you. 

People who feel lost and struggle to connect with themselves may find that the structure of tarot offers a more accessible path to this goal. It can act as a gateway, enabling someone to deepen their relationship with themselves without figuring everything out on their own. 

Many tarot practitioners do not just read alone, but will also read with or for other people, and have others read for them. This act can be incredibly intimate. Allowing someone else to read for you can mean allowing them to learn things about you that even you might not be aware of yet. This kind of connection has the potential to strengthen relationships between people. 

We also benefit, when learning tarot, from conversations with other readers. Whether that is through books by experienced practitioners or conversations with friends, we gain more knowledge in conversation than we ever could on our own. As Sam Valentine said in an interview: 

[Q]“Every tarot reader is an archive of their own information that they’ve gathered about tarot.”

Lastly, the spiritual guidance provided by the tarot may help create a metaphysical site of home in and of itself. For myself, when I sit down in front of my altar and shuffle a deck with my eyes closed, I feel more calm and connected than I do in many other situations. This home can be especially powerful since it cannot be taken from us. It is a home that follows us and that we may access when and how we need to. 

There are many more things that could be said about LGBTQ+ people and our draw towards tarot, but I am by no means a tarot expert so I will leave my thoughts here for now: if you’re not sure what home means to you, pick up some cards and ask what they’ve got to say about it.

Do you have favorite tarot spreads or tips you’d like to share? I’d love to hear from you! Let me know in the comments on this post if you’re so inclined.

Also, you may have noticed a slowing down in newsletters recently. It’s possible a larger shift in newsletters is being planned for the future. Stay tuned, and stay curious.

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