by @tabootarotreader
The Heteronormative Gender Binary in Western Astrology is deeply embedded and largely unquestioned. Despite this, Astrology has a hidden Queer tradition!
Ever had a witchy Queer friend ask to read your Birth Chart? Witches have always been Queer, dear. Post-Internet Queer Folk are embracing Astrology like Drag Queens embrace stiletto pumps & Ursula the Sea Witch! Queer Folk naturally find solace in the study of our Nonbinary Universe. Ohhh the Queer urge to blast off into infinity and beyond! When I started to study Astrology, I must admit the Heteronormativity was discouraging. I remember recently this year browsing the metaphysical section at a local book store looking for Astrology resources. I will not put the author on blast in order to avoid gifting her any undeserving attention, but I started reading a 1970's classic Astrology book written by a well known cis female Astrologer. I discovered one chapter about Homosexuality and Uranus energy. I was instantly intrigued as a Queer Astrologer - aware that Uranus in Hellenistic Greek Astrology is associated with (traditionally Male) Homosexuality - so I started reading.
I was horrified to realize how subtly homophobic this Astrologer's views were about Queer Love. She described Homosexuality as an unusual Uranian deviation from normal sexuality between Men and Women. Now some Heteronormative projectors & deflectors may call me "oversensitive" (#sorrynotsorry for having empathy), however, her interpretations of strong Uranian energy as the seeming root cause of Homosexuality oozed blatant bias. The Heteronormative perception of Queerness is biased because it perceives Queer as deviant, other, & non-traditional in contrast with the "norm of heterosexuality". How Judeo-Christian to project the human belief "heterosexuality & monogamy is the natural norm because ... Procreation!" onto all of "Nature" i.e. the millions of other species we share Earth with. Despite what standard biology text books teach, there are many other intelligent species - ranging from Dolphins to Octopus to our closest genetic relatives Bonobo chimps - whom we would label pansexual, sexually fluid, and/or polyamorous #decolonizeyourcurriculum
Thus Heteronormativity is not only a human projection - some Judeo-Christian fantasy - it's also a simplified false belief in dissonance with the complex reality of Nature. Furthermore any open-minded historian of Ancient Cultures will tell you Queerness was not taboo in the Ancient World before Christian Colonizers attempted to wipe out indigenous cultures. In fact Queerness was an accepted - and in some cases even celebrated - tradition. E.g. just look to the ancient Two-Spirit tradition of North American indigenous cultures, the Third Gender tradition in Mesoamerica, & the Hijra tradition of South Asia. Maybe Queerness is traditional, and Queerphobia is modern #flipthescript Therefore with this expanded perception of Queerness, can we realistically reduce the vast spectrum of Queer experience simply to the Uranian impulse? It has been argued by Hellenistic Astrologers generally that Uranus in the 1st house (i.e. Aquarius Ascendant), Uranus aspects to Venus/Mars, and/or more planets in Aquarius/the 11th house are all potential indicators of a "homosexual" orientation.
Did you know that the root meaning of "bad" in Old English was a slur insulting Feminine men? "Bad" c. 1300, "inadequate, unsatisfactory, worthless; unfortunate;" late 14c., "wicked, evil, vicious; counterfeit;" from 13c. in surnames (William Badde, Petri Badde, Asketinus Baddecheese, Rads Badinteheved). Rare before 1400, and evil was more common until c. 1700 as the ordinary antithesis of good. It has no apparent relatives in other languages. It is possibly from Old English derogatory term bæddel and its diminutive bædling "effeminate man, hermaphrodite, pederast," which probably are related to bædan "to defile." via Online Etymology Dictionary
All of this got me curious to study more about traditional Hellenistic Greek views correlating Homosexuality with Uranus:
Uranian (from Ancient Greek Ἀφροδίτη Οὐρανία Aphrodítē Ouranía) is a historical term for homosexual men. The word was also used as an adjective in association with male homosexuality or inter-male attraction regardless of sexual orientation.
An early use of the term appears in Friedrich Schiller's 'Sixth Letter' in the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795–96). Schiller claims that state institutions are so jealous they would rather share their servants with a Cytherean Venus than a Uranian Venus. The term was used by activist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in a series of five booklets from 1864 to 1865 collected under the title Forschungen über das Räthsel der mannmännlichen Liebe (The Riddle of Man–Manly Love). The term uranian was adopted by English-language advocates of homosexual emancipation in the Victorian era, such as Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, who used it to describe a comradely love that would bring about true democracy.Oscar Wilde once wrote to his lover Robert Ross in an undated letter, "To have altered my life would have been to have admitted that uranian love is ignoble. I hold it to be noble—more noble than other forms."
The term Uranians also designates a group of writers who studied classics and wrote pederastic poetry from roughly the 1870s to the 1930s. The writings of this group came to be known by the phrase Uranian poetry. The art of Henry Scott Tuke and Wilhelm von Gloeden is also sometimes referred to as Uranian.
(via Wikipedia)
Post-Internet so many trolls online say that Nonbinary identities come from "Ur-anus" whilst upholding the Venus/Mars binary myth. So I updated one to be more Queer-friendly!
How and why did Uranus come to be associated with Homosexuality in Ancient Greece?
Despite everything we learn about Greek Mythology in Western education, Zeus' gay romance with a Shepard boy named Gaynmede is conveniently erased from the curriculum:
URANUS IS THE RULER OF AQUARIUS
This planet and sign represent the queer energies of the cosmos we inhabit:
Uranus is unique as the only planet in our solar system that rotates on its horizontal axis. He literally rolls through the universe, and at an amazing speed – for while the planet is 47 times the size of the earth, a day lasts only 10 earth hours. Mythologically, Uranus was the original male principle, the Sky God, who was castrated by his son Chronos (Saturn), after which his sexual energies were channelled into the creation of art and beauty. The first Uranian moons that were discovered were named after the faeries of Midsummer Nights Dream – Titania, Oberon, Umbriel, Miranda, and Puck.
The mythology of Aquarius is the story of Zeus, king of the gods, falling for shepherd boy Ganymede, transforming himself into an eagle to swoop down and whisk the boy to the heavens where he became cup-bearer to the gods. When the goddess Hera became jealous Ganymede was forced to move on, but Zeus placed him in the sky forever as the water bearer constellation Aquarius. Planet Earth is currently on the zodiacal cusp transitioning from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius. The rise of human rights, gender equality, gay liberation, digital technology are all signs of this shift occurring.
Is the traditional interpretation of Uranus as the "Homosexual Planet" rooted in Heteronormative Bias?
... I’d like to share my opinion on what we discussed. Last month, Alexis had gone to a lecture by Christopher Renstrom about the topic of whether or not particular Uranus influence in the natal chart can be indicative of homosexuality, which inspired a Twitter thread where she explains the history of this association in modern astrology; I was happy to hear this refreshing perspective, as I used to think it was a homophobic theory – It isn’t, but I do disagree with (what I know of) it. I think it’s an inherently flawed concept that can’t be fixed by trying to remove or twist a negative connotation, and it’s ultimately unhelpful to the LGBPQ+ community.
I believe the association between Uranus and homosexuality can be summarized by the word queer, which has served as both a slur and as a reclaimed self-identifier over the years. “Queer” as a slur refers to same-sex attraction as inherently peculiar or unnatural, whereas when used as a valid label it refers to same-sex attraction (and more) as unwilling to adhere to heteronormative social structures. Initially, Uranus’ relationship to same-sex attraction was in alignment with “queer” as a slur, but more modern astrologers like Renstrom have uplifted it to suit the reclamation of “queer” instead. The intention behind that shift is greatly appreciated, but it is rooted in a perspective that hasn’t adapted very far from the bigotry that birthed it; different is different, whether portrayed as a good or bad thing.
To suggest that same-sex attraction can be located in the natal chart, especially with the planet of anomaly and revolution, is to treat it like a condition or a fundamental deviation, as if heterosexuality is default. With this mentality, there should be dichotomy between Uranus ruling homosexuality and Saturn ruling heterosexuality. At that point, do you see where it begins to fall apart? No love is by nature a rebellion or a tradition. Not all straight people love from a place of order and convention; not all gay people love from a place of revolt. The purpose, the feeling, the state of loving as a gay person isn’t all to “change society.” It’s not about anyone else, and it never was until heterosexuals made it that way. Labeling gay love itself as Uranian keeps us “queer” and divides us all by sexual orientation, keeping us outside of Saturn’s walls. Our purpose is not to be queer. Our nature is not queer. We’re queer because you made us.
In response to this, the instinctive thought will be “of course; but Uranus rules homosexuality in this culture today because Uranus is about society, and right now, in this society, being openly and proudly gay is revolutionary.” Correct, and that’s what I’m getting at. Uranus is about society; it’s generational. Revolutions are generational. If being proudly gay is Uranian now, being proudly black or Latinx or Asian has also been Uranian at some point. Can we look to Uranus in the natal chart to determine someone’s race, then? In many cultures and eras around the world, being proudly independent and outspoken as a female is or has been Uranian. Can Uranus indicate womanhood in the natal chart? If you wouldn’t reduce the very nature of being part of a race or sex to a rebellion, why should you for sexual orientation? Uranus has always been a powerful ally to LGBT+ people; its transits have often brought great relief and progress to our cause. Uranus may even connect to us in mythos. But that doesn’t mean we are products of it. Uranus rules gay pride, not gayness. Revolution is an action with a place and time, not a state or way of being, and never inborn. It’s forced. It’s necessary. It’s not who we are, it’s who we have to be, temporarily. Uranus doesn’t create us, it’s just helping to make room for us.
If you believe Uranus in the natal chart can indicate same-sex attraction, I am not calling you homophobic, but I think that that idea is an altered version of a homophobic one. All I’m saying is that I’m not gay because I have Uranus square sun and trine moon; I’m just gay, and maybe Uranus or I will use those aspects, its transits, or its influence in my synastry to help me be proud so I can make contributions to the acceptance of people like me sometime in my life. I hope others born 50 years from now won’t have to say that.
Is there any objective weight behind this correlation when studying historical Uranus transits in relation to the Queer Rights Movement?
By tracing the passage of Uranus, the ruling planet of Aquarius, through the zodiac over the last century it is possible to detect how the r-evolutionary Uranian energy is influencing the progress of lgbtq+ rights.
When the first group campaigning for gay rights in the USA, the Mattachine Society, was formed in the USA in 1950. Uranus had just begun its journey through the sign of the Divine Mother energy, Cancer. This was the moment, I suggest, when some significant number of the gay people of the world started to listen to her call to us to come home to ourselves, to believe strongly that we could claim our place in and enjoy the respect of society after so many centuries of it being denied us. (The very first gay rights group in the world was in fact in Germany, formed in 1897 the Wissenschaftlich-humanitares Komitee (WhK or “Scientific-humanitarian Committee”) sent petitions to parliament signed by 200 professional men. Uranus was in Scorpio at the time, a water element sign just like Cancer, and the sign of rebirth and transformation),
The practical work of legislation relating to gay rights happened in the UK in the 1960s, leading to the Sexual Offences Act of 1967, while Uranus was in Virgo, a sign that works to improve the world.
The spark moment for gay rights, however, came with the Stonewall Riots, June 28- July 1st, 1969. Uranus had just completed its journey through Virgo four days earlier and was settling into its long stay in Libra, the sign that most believes in justice. The rise of gay rights is part of the evolutionary drive towards balancing the overbearing patriarchal energies,still dominant in the modern world. The revolutionary Uranian energy burst forth, anger manifesting. The conciliatory, assimilationist, approach of the Mattachine Society was not producing results, but from 1969 onwards gay visibility, activism and pride spread through the western world.
During the incubation years of the HIV virus spreading quietly among gay men, the late 70s, Uranus was in the mysterious darkness of Scorpio, with the first case later recognised as AIDS coming in 1980. While Uranus was in Sagittarius (1981-88) the search for ways to treat HIV was underway, as was the rise of a politicised and self-conscious queer community, and the early growth of the now global pagan, essentialist group the Radical Faeries, that embraces and explores spiritual and communal depth of connection as core traits of queerness. Those of us coming out in the 1980s entered a gay scene in which a sense of community, of the need to work together for our very survival, was strong. This community sense was catalysed through adversity – AIDS deaths and political apathy or outright hostility. The UK Conservative government’s introduction of Clause 28 in 1988, outlawing the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality in education, galvanised us in the UK further. Gay Pride events swelled in numbers and determination.
While Uranus was traversing Capricorn (1988-1996) many efforts were made to raise our game, the fight for equality and a treatment for AIDS were our top priority, then once our queer planet settled for the long haul through its home sign Aquarius in 1996, things really began to speed up for lgbtq visibility, rights and acceptance. Plus this was the turning point in the AIDS struggle as effective treatments became available.
In the UK, an equal age of consent for gay men was finally enacted in 2000, while Uranus was in its home sign Aquarius. During this transit (1996 – 2003), in the post AIDS, millennial world, it might be said that acceptance of gay people finally arrived. Wikipedia reports that in the USA, “In four landmark rulings between the years 1996 and 2015, the Supreme Court invalidated a state law banning protected class recognition based upon homosexuality, struck down sodomy laws nationwide, struck down Section of the Defense of Marriage Act, and made same-sex marriage legal nationwide.” The moves to recognise same sex relationships, through civil partnerships and marriage, spread around the world while Uranus was in the emotional, universal, compassionate energy of Pisces 2003-2010.
Neptune joined Uranus in Aquarius in 1998 and stayed in the sign until 2011. The mystical God of the Oceans brought a powerful escapist energy into the picture, reflected in a vast expansion of drug use on the gay scene at that time. In fact for gay men, during that period sex became widely associated with heavy drug use, and with associated casualties lost to addiction or overdose. Neptune moved into its home sign Pisces in 2011, which energy is related to both intoxication and spirituality, and is traversing there until 2025. Drug use among gay men is not abating, despite the horror stories of dependency, delirium and death we’ve been hearing for some years now, but there has been a huge rise in spiritual or community gay groups, seeking more variety and depth of connection than the commercially driven gay scene generally offers, and many men are finding the path to self-healing and spirituality through the process of recovery. The message of Neptune in Pisces for gay men is that spirituality is the solution to addiction, and that in fact spirituality can lead us to all the heights and blissful experiences we seek through drug use. Spirituality is about opening the doors to bliss, and keeping them open – while drugs just give us a temporary, ultimately destructive, experience.
During the period of Uranus in Aries 2010 – 2018 we saw r-evolutionary developments in the form of the Arab Spring, Occupy movement, a reinvigorated women’s movement and the birth of Black Lives Matter, and also the huge disparity in rights and conditions for LGBTQ people around the world came very much into focus, leading more queers to think more deeply about who we really are. This period saw the rapid rise of genderqueer terminology, transgender people came much more into society’s awareness, identity itself was undergoing the radical revolutionary effect of Uranus in the sign of the Ram, the sign of the ‘I Am’, as the planet commences a new traversal of the zodiac from the first sign.
Uranus in Aries also saw the birth of QUEER SPIRIT FESTIVAL in the UK, a 5 day event bringing together a few hundred spiritually inclined queers from the whole LGBTQ spectrum, in a space where we dared to declare not only our love for each other but also our deep love for the planet, for nature, for humanity, to declare and demonstrate that queer people are in fact a Healing Tribe within the human race. We have always had a purpose – all beings have a purpose, there are no mistakes – but our role has been denied for so long that life itself is seriously out of balance. All forms of love, all forms of consensual adult sexuality, must be honoured to bring healing to the human race and thereby to the whole planet.
As Uranus moves through Taurus (2018-2026), the second sign of this new traversal of the zodiac, the energy is coming to bring the mystical awareness of who we are home to our bodies, to bring us into a deeper awareness that we belong here on this planet and that in our bodies sit the many fantastic energies we bring to the human show. Think Queers as Planetary Healers, Soul Doctors, Ecstatic Celebrants, Spirit Channels, and also Midwives to the Dying. When Uranus reaches communicative Gemini in 2026 it is more likely that the world will be ready to talk about this aspect of homo and transsexuality a lot more. Until then, Uranus in Taurus is about us queers embracing this reality in our own community, while also he is contributing to the rapid, unexpected changes the world is experiencing.
19th century queer pioneers Karl Ulrichs of Germany and Edward Carpenter of the UK used the word Uranian to describe queer people, in the days before the psychological terms homosexual and heterosexual had been thought of. These terms, invented in the late 19th century, but only spreading widely in the 20th, limit gay people to being little more than our sexual expression. Ulrichs and Carpenter had a much grander vision of our nature, and chose Uranian as a suitable name because of the Goddess Aphrodite Urania, known in ancient Greece as the patron of same sex love. These early pioneers saw great possibilities in the emancipation of the homosexual and transsexual spirit. Carpenter’s works include 1908’s ‘The Intermediate Sex’ in which he says,“The Uranian people may be destined to form the advance guard of that great movement which will one day transform the common life by substituting the bond of personal affection and compassion for the monetary, legal and other external ties which now control and confine society”.
I personally resonate with Astrologer Corina Dross' interpretation of Uranus energy being inherently Queer not because of sexuality, but because of radical revolution:
There is no planet of being gay, just like there’s no planet linked to heterosexuality, but there is a planet of queerness! Uranus, also the planet of revolutions and inventions, correlates to the part of each of us that needs to go against the grain of social norms. Uranus helps us live more defiantly, more bravely — and with an awareness of how we’re intertwined with everyone else, and how getting more free personally is linked to collective freedom. Strongly Uranian people are at the forefront of all liberation movements and utopian social experiments.
I advocate re-branding Uranus away from the "Homosexual Planet". Perhaps Uranus isn't innately Queer, but Queer folk are Uranian because we channel its revolutionary energy to destroy shame! Homosexual is an outdated medical term created by Heteronormative people, heavy with historical shame. As a word it reduces a human being's identity or entire being to sexual orientation - and furthermore - originally implied this orientation is a condition. Queerness is so much more than our sexual orientations. Queerness is simultaneous evolution & revolution. Queer Folk are a complex, multidimensional, and diverse group of survivors existing in a heteronormative world that increasingly views our existence as a threat to "traditional family values" i.e. a political scapegoat tactic to fear monger votes. During Pride month June 2023 the Human Rights Campaign declared an unprecedented national state of emergency for all LGBTQ+ Americans given the 75 anti-Queer bills passed in certain states with more being proposed. Now more than ever, Queer Folk must stand together to embody radical Self-love in the face of irrational hatred.
Cultural Constructs of Gender in the West have been heavily influenced by Astrology, as evidenced by the naive myth, "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus".
The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do Men and Women Really Speak Different Languages? is a book by Deborah Cameron that was originally released in the autumn of 2008. The title refers to the central conceit of the book by John Gray of January 1992, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, which Cameron’s book is (partially) the response to. Cameron argues that “what linguistic differences there are, between men and women, are driven, by the need to construct and project personal meaning, and identity.” She challenges “the idea that sex differences might have biological rather than social causes” as being more motivated by the reaction to politically correct attitudes than being derived from basic research. The book argues that there is as much similarity and variation within each gender as there is between men and women. Cameron concludes there is a need to think about gender in more complex ways than the prevailing myths and stereotypes allow. (via Wikipedia)
Despite Astrology being dominated by the Heteronormative Venus/Mars Gender Binary, it's still experiencing a boom in the Queer community Post-Internet.
We’re currently in the midst of an astrology boom — the New Yorker recently proclaimed the field is, “enjoying a broad cultural acceptance that hasn’t been seen since the nineteen-seventies.” A 2017 Pew research center poll found that about 30% of American adults say they believe in astrology, up from 25% in 2009. And economically, the field is thriving: Earlier this year, the astrology app Co-Star announced it had raised a $5.2 million seed round. Astrology is incredibly popular among the LGBTQ+ community, so much so that earlier this year, Vice UK released a guide to the “astrology queer” subculture, and in 2018, queer publication them. published an article about how queer people who don’t believe in astrology “often feel alienated from the LGBTQ+ community at large.” But queer and gender non-conforming people exploring astrology for the first time often come up against gendered concepts that exclude them: compatibility guides designed for cis straight couples; articles that differentiate between an “Aries man” and “Aries woman”; the classification of the signs as “masculine” or “feminine.” That’s why a wave of modern astrologers are working to change how gendered astrology can be, and in the process, making the field more inclusive.
Astrology has been interpreted by different people over thousands of years, and 2019 is not the first time that astrologers have created a LGBTQ+-inclusive approach. Jessica Lanyadoo, author of Astrology For Real Relationships, has been practicing astrology since the ’90s, and she's always worked within the queer community, of which she is a part. “I’ll never forget, around 1995, a lesbian in her 40s told me, If you have a group of lesbians, at least one of them will have an astrologer,” she jokes. Instead of “masculine” and “feminine,” Lanyadoo views the signs as those that have an external approach versus an internal approach.
“When we’re talking about all Libra men are this, and all Scorpio women are that, whether we’re talking about sun sign generalizations or gendered generalizations, they’re just that — generalizations,” she explains. To really understand someone’s chart, she says, you have to look at so much more than their sun sign or their gender, which is much more expansive than just male and female anyway. “There are so many different things we must contextualize when we’re looking at astrology, and the problem of making distinctions around gender, but not doing so around class or race or religion or ability, is that we’re treating gender as valid but these other things as not valid,” she says. Astrology guides that heavily emphasize gender came about because of who has traditionally had power in astrology, Lanyadoo adds: cis straight white men. “When we fall back on this women are from Venus, men are from Mars archetype, it’s outdated and it’s misinformed,” she says. “I wouldn’t say it’s a relic of an old way of being; I would say it’s a relic of only certain kinds of people having a seat at the table, even in astrology.” It’s not just about getting rid of “masculine” and “feminine” classifications, either, she adds. “It’s about queering astrology, expanding how we understand gender roles, relationships, power dynamics, the complexity of sexual passion and sexual compatibility.”
In my humble opinion: it is absolutely silly to reduce Planetary energies to fit our human constructs of Gender.
Repeat: silly. Whether or not the average person realizes it, Planets are not human beings. Planets do not subscribe to our human concepts of Gender. Therefore is it possible that a Planet's sphere of influence is Nonbinary? Is it possible that Heteronormative programming has vastly limited our capacities to interpret & perceive the full spectrum of Planetary energies? What if a Planet had multiple energetic expressions which we label Feminine (yin/receptive/inward), Masculine (yang/expressive/outward), & Androgynous (neutral/balanced/upward)? #holytrinity E.g. in Vedic Astrology Mars is simultaneously the ruling planet of Masculine & Cardinal Fire sign Aries (as symbolized by the Emperor Major Arcana) and Feminine & Fixed Water sign Scorpio (as symbolized by the Death Major Arcana). Mar's more androgynous aspects of energy could be symbolized by the Tower Major Arcana. The traditional Hellenistic perception of Martian energy as only Masculine (in contrast to only Feminine Venus, the Empress) is perhaps very limiting, indeed. Did you know that the Ancient Mayans perceived of Venus as a Masculine Malefic? The Gender Script has been completely flipped! So who is "right" and who is "wrong"? The Ancient Greeks or Ancient Mayans or Ancient Indians? Perhaps there is simply not one "correct answer" in the Multiverse.
The Gender Binary is a blockage i.e. a very human limitation in perception, as governed by Saturn.
Human beings naturally have limitations in perception when it comes to understanding the vast Mysteries of the Cosmos. The Convoluted Universe is so incomprehensible, so mysterious, and so alien to us humans. It's normal therefore to project our own concepts & frameworks onto the Mysteries in order to reach some limited understanding. However that desire to understand the Universe in and of itself is at the root of the limitation: a lot of Heteronormative people are only capable of understanding alien concepts through their own filters of perception. The Queer experience naturally gifts Queer Folk a more androgynous, balanced perspective capable of holding multiple perceptual frameworks at once given our complex intersection of identities in Heteronormative society. I unapologetically propose a Nonbinary perspective in my Astrological works considering the Occult tradition of Alchemy stresses the importance of embodying the transcendental Divine Androgyne Archetype (as symbolized by the Temperance Major Arcana) to uncover the Mysteries of the Convoluted Universe. The Divine Androgyne balances polarity within Self - perhaps the right & left hemispheres of the brain - in order to transcend the Earthly plane of duality into the androgynous realm of Soul. The Temperance Archetype is traditionally Queer, Pagan, & Intersex despite modern heteronormative attempts to Christianize it.
Nonbinary in the context of Occult Astrology - just like the androgynous angel of the Temperance card - transcends the dualistic concept of Gender.
Is there a reason many Occult sources describe Higher Beings as innately androgynous? No matter what you believe, there may certainly be many different expressions of Consciousness in the Convoluted Universe which exist beyond binary and (current) human understanding. Thus Nonbinary in the context of Astrology is simply acknowledging that the Convoluted Universe is nonlinear, multidimensional, and full of diverse expressions of energy manifesting as Consciousness. Ergo how ridiculous is it to assume that there are just 2 expressions of energy - Masculine & Feminine - within the entire Universe which we know so little about! How entitled is it to believe that all other expressions of Consciousness - such as a Planet - will follow a heteronormative human model. How lacking in imagination is it to erase all other possibility regarding how the Universe could manifest Consciousness beyond the binary of heteronormativity's comfort zone. It is clear as day that Heteronormative perceptions & assumptions lean very reductive when interpreting a Planet's meaning.
How can we can transform Astrology into a more inclusive & inviting community?
How can we as Queer Folk begin to reclaim Astrology as our birthright? How can we deconstruct the Heteronormative Gender Binary ideals and fantasy constructs projected onto Planets whilst practicing Astrology? It's been a rough road to deconstruct Heteronormativity in Astrology. In my humble opinion, one of the most misguided assumptions in Heteronormative Horoscopes is that an Aries man and an Aries woman are somehow compatible with potentially different signs and/or inherently different personality types because of Gender. Any Aries Rising - regardless of Gender Identity - is subject to the same core impulse of the Aries Archetype as ruled by Mars i.e. the impulse to move and create energy. Incoming Truth Bomb: each Zodiac Sign represents an Archetypal Energy, and your personality is a synthesis of multiple Signs! Personality and relationship compatibility certainly are not determined by just one sign i.e. your Sun Sign. If Air & Fire signs are the Masculine elements, while Water & Earth signs are the Feminine elements, then every single human's Birth Chart is a ratio of Yin/Yang energies. Thus Gender is of no consequence to energy being embodied. Frankly a lot of social media Sun Sign-based Astrology - especially romantic Heteronormative Horoscopes that offer zero information about the current Astrological transits - lean shallow, superficial, & silly.
There are so many scam artists claiming to be Astrologers who make content such as "Most toxic Zodiac couples" versus "Most compatible Zodiac couples" only discussing Sun Sign compatibility. If you actually study Astrology, it's clear the Sun Sign doesn't determine ultimate compatibility. In fact the Ascendant/Descendant and Mars/Venus placements are more important when cross-comparing compatibility. Most Sun Sign-based content is misinformation being peddled by frauds whom clearly don't study the inner dimensions of the Birth Chart. So how do Astrologers even begin the journey towards making their content more authentic and inclusive? To recapitulate: we must bury the archaic myth that Men are Martian and Women are Venusian once and for all. This myth has been embraced by hateful bigots - who know nothing about Astrology - making anti-Trans & anti-Nonbinary online content. We must stop projecting our cultural constructs of Feminine & Masculine onto these two Planets. Venusian & Martian energy frankly have so much more depth beyond the Gender Binary!
Why is it so important to re-brand Venus & Mars away from the Gender Binary?
Perhaps because traditional Hellenistic astrology teaches a false belief that the Venus placement is most important for Women in compatibility while the Mars placement is most important for Men. To separate or differentiate humans via Gender is not an objective nor authentic approach to Astrology. Both the Venus & Mars placements must be considered and cross-compared in the charts of any two people regardless of Gender Identity. The Gender Binary projected onto Venus/Mars is built on a subjective House of Sand. It has spouted so many Gender theories and seeming absolutes in Astrology based on an assumption that Venus is Feminine and Mars is Masculine (repeat: the Ancient Mayans perceived of Venus as a Masculine Malefic!). So how do we incorporate more gender-neutral or androgynous language into the Astrology community?
If you are an Astrology content creator seeking to make your content more inclusive, continue with these 3 simple steps:
1) Focus more on Zodiac Signs' Modality (i.e. Cardinal, Fixed, & Mutable) and Element (Fire, Earth, Air, & Water). Of course we can still acknowledge Feminine versus Masculine as cultural constructs as long as they are disassociated from physical sex and re-associated with the energetic concepts of Inward/Yin/Passive vs. Outward/Yang/Active. If you desire to use Masculine/Feminine terminology, please educate clients about the Yin/Yang elemental ratio in their Birth Chart e.g. My Chart has an 11/3 ratio of 11 Water/Earth sign placements to 3 Fire/Air sign placements. So I am grounded in Yin energy
2) Embrace gender neutral terms like "folks & people" vs. "men & women", "they/them" vs. "he/she", & "partner/beloved" vs. "husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend". Obviously pronouns are controversial and triggering to bigots. However, I personally feel it is futile to resist this natural evolution into an androgynous future. So let's embrace gender-neutral terminology now versus later! E.g. Instead of saying in a Horoscope, "Aries woman, you will meet a Libra man this month. He is going to sweep you off your feet" one could say, "Aries Rising, you may meet a person with strong Libra in their chart this month. They could sweep you off your feet". Why resist inclusivity and cling to exclusive language? It's not a dictating demand to evolve your exclusive language, it's an invitation to inclusivity
3) Look into what Queer Astrologers are writing and saying! Active listening is the best way to be an ally or accomplice in the shared Freedom Journey towards Inclusivity
Queer Astrology is inherently inclusive because it acknowledges the true nature of the Nonbinary Universe we all exist in
Queer astrology takes its cue from queer theory, which is all about questioning, critiquing, destabilising, undoing, and making the monolith of heteronormativity non-linear. Heteronormativity assumes a cis-gendered, child-rearing subject. It loves the nuclear family, because that’s where it reproduces its norms ideologically, and ensures biological reproduction as well. It likes things clean, straight, simple, and either/ or. Through things like sports, clothes, colours, fairy tales and so on, it structures the fluidity of desire and gender expression into neat binaries – like the kind we see in Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. In resistance to this logic, queer astrology proposes that we should all start talking about this star stuff in a more nuanced, modern and non-binary way. Rather than speaking about ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ signs and planets, for example, it might talk about outward and inward energies. Why? Because this shift helps divorce queer astrology from gendered concepts that are alienating; not just for certain forms of queer identification, but also for straight men and women who are increasingly uncomfortable with being pushed into rigid gender roles.
Queer astrology is also sensitive to the queerness of the Zodiac and, by extension, to the inherent queerness of astrological identifications. For a moment, think about what it means for a straight cis woman to identify as a double Sagittarius with a seven-year Uranus transit in their First House of Self. Think of all the complex vectors of energy and gender at work here: man, horse, hybrid, woman, cis, moon, sun, quirky Uranus. Reducing the complexity of this identification to some basic, generalised statement about one’s femininity or masculinity seems to miss the fluidity of the ensemble.
So, what does queer astrology look like? It looks like good astrology. It looks like being open to the multiplicity and singularity implicit in the spacetime of a given chart. Generalisations of all kinds – not least in astrology – provide easy answers. But easy answers aren’t who any of us are. We’re all multiple, complex, and open. Queer astrology offers non-reductive readings of who and where a person is in life, since each chart is infinitely unique and non-binary when you think about it.
Recently, I was learning about the chromatic scale in music. While most pop songs these days use diatonic scales (seven notes in the same key), the chromatic scale uses all 12 notes. These extra five notes produce chroma – that is, colour and complexity. Queer astrology, then, is kind of like a chromatic scale. It includes all the notes (not just the easy ones) to make a more colourful sound – almost like a rainbow. Happy Pride!
In Conclusion: Queer Astrology can provide a new lifeline for LGBTQ+ expression and meaningful connection in our Community!
In an article entitled "Who Needs Astrology," which borrows its title from Stuart Halls's essay, "Who Needs 'Identity,'" Tabitha Prado-Richardson posits that the resurgent appeal of contemporary astrology lies in its capacity to hold "both optimism and pessimism depending on emotional necessity." Although queer theories of the early oughts valorized entropic force, scheming spectacular ends to futuristic thinking and positing asociality as an organizing politics, astrology stages a stubbornly relational and anticipatory frame—not optimism, necessarily, but an understanding that good things can still happen despite the sinking sensation that things are only getting worse. This partially utopic frame explains the appeal of astrology, especially its ascendant popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, where astrology offered a reprieve from more rigid structures of identity. In the so-called 'Age of Aquarius,' astrology promised an era of countercultural change unfolding against the backdrop of widespread protests against the Vietnam War and movements for sexual and societal freedom. Now, in another moment of upheaval marked by catastrophic ecocide, the rise of ethnonationalism, and a pandemic that has leveled an asymmetric toll across the Global South and vulnerable communities in the Global North, astrology has gained a new audience who seek solace in the stars. Even if astrology might appear too insubstantial to confront the magnitude of these crises, the resurgent interest in astrology suggests that a system of planetary alignments and charts might nevertheless posit a world that is more bearable tomorrow than the day before.
Astrology, despite its enmeshment in the colonial trappings of New Age consumerism and appropriation, offers an informal but critical resource through which participants can navigate everyday suffering, forge trans/queer community, and push against normative forms of care and healing. Astrology can both supplement and contest medicalized and institutional discourses of care, which emphasize outcomes and goals over the granular process of accumulating the reserves of power necessary to withstand injury, illness, and exhaustion. Here, my understanding of astrology is indebted to Ren-yo Hwang's theory of "deviant care," that is, the practices that question and unsettle the "teleological and colonial relationship to care." Indeed, astrologers like Deon Mitchell describe how astrology offers healing to those who have been disappointed by mainstream systems of health and well-being. "When you're Black, or disabled, or otherwise marginalized," they explain, "there's kind of this push in our society to be as helpful and productive as possible, and we don't really take enough time and think about what we need." This idea of astrology as auxiliary shelter resonates with astrological practitioners like Johanna Hedva, Chani Nicholas, and Alice Sparkly Kat, who posit astrology as a lifeline for queer people, people of color, and those living with chronic illness and disability.
"Solace in the Stars: Queer Astrology, Capitalism, and Colonialism" by Christopher Joseph Lee
Peace & Blessings,
🙏🌺💞
Treille Bon
AKA Flower Prince
bit.ly/tabootarotreader
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