Reading the Tarot for Gender Queerness

Image description: the Knight of Cups rides a white horse in a desert landscape. They carry a golden cup. A winding, blue river flows into the distance.

The Knight of Cups, Caballero de Copas, tender and sustaining warrior, shows up for me in my darkest, loneliest moments. I pull the card and immediately feel less hopeless, less abandoned. This helper’s feminine masculinity soothes my soul when it is most weary, reminding me of the strength inherent in my vulnerability.

My eyes pore over the image: the braided curve of a Princess Leia space bun peeking out from the helmet, their purposeful gaze, the confident set of their chin. I am comforted by the composure and self-containment they exude as they lovingly carry the cup (and me). Their armor both gives structure and flows like water. Their steed is both horse and fish, swimming steadily on four legs while its mane ripples and its diamond eye looks deep within.

All my knights are transmasc. My pages are nonbinary. My transfemme Nine of Pentacles stands in the most decadent of queer pleasure gardens. My Two of Cups depicts the aperture of trans self-love and the option to externalize it (or not).

Gender queerness is visibly present in the characters that Pamela Colman Smith created for the tarot deck I interact with daily. And so is gender normativity, which can be alienating, activating, or neutral for me, depending on the day.

I work with this deck because I readily connect with its archetypal energies. My communication with the cards is highly personal and I simultaneously sense that I’m tapping into a boundless field of collective meaning.

But as with any art, it offers an uneven representation of my own lived experience. There is both ease and discomfort as different parts of who I am and what I value are affirmed or ignored or misrepresented.

I am a white person with European ancestors so the skin tones of Pamela Colman Smith’s characters represent my own. At times this fades into the background for me and other times it becomes a painful reminder of the insidiousness of racism and my own white privilege to forget about it. The shapes and sizes of the bodies sometimes do and sometimes don’t match what I am and have been and relate to and want to see.

In many ways Pamela Colman Smith’s art falls short. And at the same time it holds an incredible amount of support and power for me. When an image lands wrong, I internally revise and rewrite its meaning. By choosing to seek out and affirm details of gender queerness I have the opportunity to see my own transness and nonbinaryness reflected back to me. I create personal relationships with these helping energies and arrive at a place where I can let down my guard and accept their loving assistance.

And so I celebrate them (and I dare to celebrate myself).

My Sota de Bastos, Page of Wands, stands in a moment of self-recognition and awe. “This is me,” they’re saying, “This is my power, and how wondrous it is!” Their black eyeliner and the luxurious drape of their wrap give a sense of interior, candlelit night even as daylight floods the open desert landscape with bold oranges and blues. The scene pulses with yang heat while soft touches whisper cooling yin.

A feather perches playfully erect in their hat. On their smock, salamanders of the dark night circle into themselves on a sunny yellow background. A small smile paints their lips as they consider the tool in their hands: the externalization of their inner power. Like with all the Pages, there is no self-doubt, no cynicism, only pure youthfulness and a spontaneous expression of the self.

This is how I feel when I really settle into my own nonbinaryness. I return to my kid self, the essential me who romps and imagines and gazes out from an inner place of pure flame. I play at being everything and both and nothing at all and my heart simply beats. The fire that is me becomes a marvelous tool and the thrill of lived experience is all.

Image description: the Page of Wands stands on orange sand with three peaked sand dunes in the background. They hold a tall wooden wand with two hands and gaze at it.

Image description: the Nine of Pentacles person wears a flowing orange robe and holds a bird on one hand. Nine gold pentacles nestle among grapevines. Behind them the sky is golden above rust-colored mountains.

In my Nine of Pentacles, Nueve de Oros, the pleasure of simply living unfolds in the most sumptuous way. The sun has traveled across the sky and is now lowering toward the mountains in the distance, flooding the garden with sensuous warmth. A snail inches across the foreground: these are moments of sultry slowness.

Our person is triumphant in their enjoyment of the pleasures of their transfemeninity. Their robe is a rich fabric adorned with a pattern of the Venus-Mars symbols combined into one, elegantly announcing trans pride. The feminine cock of their head says they know they cut a stunning image with their face framed by their modest bonnet and ginger curls above their soft smile and perfectly manicured soul patch.

On one arm they raise up a bird that is also differently-presenting or differently-bodied (a beak is not visible) and proud with its alert pose and tuft of blue head feathers. All the fruits of the person’s labor of self-love are nestled among the grape vines: the golden coins of personal worth.

I am reminded that it is time to savor my own. To announce myself in the golden light of late afternoon and allow the warm breeze to caress my neck. The work I have done to know myself and value myself has brought me to a time and space where I am invited to enjoy the juiciness of life.

In the Two of Cups, Dos de Copas, the primary dynamic is internal: the self reaches out to itself in a way that brings the possibility of a new inner acceptance and union. The people representing two parts of the self are clearly gender queer to my eye, each one combining masculine and feminine traits in idiosyncratic ways.

The person on the right—taller, using a binder or not, shy in their floral tunic—offers their touch valiantly and waits (the winged lion hovering above lends courage and faith). They don’t rush the other person; they allow them to choose when and how and if to accept this outreach.

The person on the left is smaller in stature but more assured in their manner. Their strong hand holds the cup in a steady grip. They also have the ability to wait: because of their patience the other person has been able to work through self-doubt and build up the confidence to make the first move. It’s a beautiful representation of how the process of consensual self-knowing can evolve into self-acceptance and eventually, breath by breath, self-love.

For me, the central message is one about my relationship to myself but I also receive the suggestion that these same principles can be applied to the process of coming to know another person. As part of my own gender journey I have come to greatly value the ability of others to wait for, receive, and extend consent when the time is right.

Image description: in the Two of Cups, two people stand and face one another, each holding a golden cup. The person on the right reaches toward the other person with one hand.

There are these and many others in my deck: characters I read as trans and nonbinary who bring me courage, motivation, and sweetness. Reading the tarot for gender queerness draws its meaning out of the realm of the general and abstract and into the specific location of my own body, heart, and mind. It converts my deck from a cultural novelty item into a highly individualized tool for personal transformation.

Working with the tarot—with whatever deck speaks to us—is a way for each of us to listen to our own inner wisdom. When we engage with images that have shared meanings and then receive clear messages to divert from them and go our own way, we braid our unique selves into a broader tapestry, co-creating the world in a new form that is reflective of who is actually here.

We do it each day. We pull a card. And another. And then another.

I am grateful to have these friends by my side, at my back, and charging out ahead, all of us together on this winding journey.