Long dismissed as parlour trickery or esoteric indulgence, tarot has quietly become a refuge, a reflective ritual embraced by many in the LGBTQ+ community. Not as prophecy, but as poetry. As a practice of healing, of listening inward. In lives too often shaped by rejection and rigidity, the cards offer a way back: fluid, intuitive, and free from dogma. Through personal myths and quiet moments of self-inquiry, tarot becomes a kind of spiritual homecoming, argues staff writer Nicole Lee, an open invitation to reclaim what was once denied: the right to know and trust ourselves.
I recently attended a queer pottery painting workshop that included a complimentary tarot card reading. I think that detail alone signals how easily tarot intersects with LGBTQ+ culture.
People who are unfamiliar with tarot may assume it is primarily a fortune-telling practice. But for many, tarot is more of a spiritual ritual used to cultivate self-awareness and curiosity.
LGBTQ+ people seem to feel a particular connection to these self-reflection aspects of tarot. For those of us who grew up in patriarchal societies or church communities that taught us untrue and unhealthy self-beliefs, tarot can fill a gap as a valuable tool to reclaim power and care for their mental health.
So, I asked a few friends about their first encounters with tarot, and they all had vastly different experiences.
Tiffany (early-40s, American, all pronouns) first encountered tarot cards when he was “a church kid.” He said: “I remember being told it was devilry or some such nonsense. I was afraid to go near the esoteric area of the bookstore for decades.” Now, Tiffany uses tarot to “help me make decisions and for self-reflection and discovery.”
The first time Val (mid-30s, Irish, she/they) saw someone performing a tarot reading they were “fascinated by how it wasn’t about predicting the future, but about helping you listen to what you already know underneath the noise.” It reminded them of Irish folklore: layered, symbolic, messy. “It made sense in a way that felt both creative and personal.”
Now, Val uses tarot when they need to slow down and check in. “If I’m feeling indecisive, at a change, stuck, or unsure, I might pull a few cards and see what comes up. It’s a bit like a conversation with myself.” They added, “Sometimes it sparks a bit of journaling, or just a shift in perspective I hadn’t seen before.”
For Lisa (early-30s, Irish, she/her), it was the artistic element that caught her attention. She said: “Years back, I got an ad on Instagram for a deck with gorgeous art, so I bought it. In much the way I collect books for their covers, I do similar with tarot decks.”
Lisa believes that the cards “have as much or as little meaning as people choose to vest in them,” but she enjoys doing tarot readings for her friends because, of course, “sometimes you just want someone with a nose ring to tell you your future”.
For many LGBTQ+ people, tarot can offer a method to break-free of the traditional power structures and rigid systems we grew up with. Instead of looking to the limited and controlling hierarchies or capitalistic career escalators for guidance, tarot offers us a new, randomised system for analysing our progress: one that is more cyclical, free-form, and fluid. Ultimately, tarot provides guideposts, but invites us to lead with our own intuition.
Val believes there’s something particularly freeing about tarot because, “it doesn’t come with rules, dogma or judgement. For LGBTQ+ folks, especially those of us who’ve felt pushed to the margins, that openness is a relief.” They described their experience with tarot as “creative” and “intuitive,” adding: “That kind of spaciousness is powerful when you’ve spent your life navigating rigid systems.”
Lisa described tarot as “a mix of the esoteric, the inherent ‘outsideness’ of being queer, and the fact that there’s a lot of feminine energy in queerness. Tarot lives in the apex of all of that.”
Tiffany said, “queer people in marginalised positions have always been creative and expansive in our practice of self and community care. We often need nontraditional sources and methods to care for ourselves and each other because our social systems don’t fully understand our experiences.”
Everyone has their own ways of approaching and working with tarot cards but, for many queer people, practising tarot can mean tapping into their own intuitions, reconnecting with themselves, and accessing their internal power. As Val said: “For queer people, it can also be a quiet act of reclaiming our own authority listening inward instead of looking for external approval or permission.”
For Tiffany, the process of choosing the question itself is quite important, and something they approach with a particular thoughtfulness to avoid questions that lead to fear or anxiety responses. He believes it’s important to respect the cards and said, “learning how to ask questions of the tarot is, in itself, a good reflection process: what do I want to know? Why do I want to know it? What do I want to get out of this reading?”
Tarot has been a helpful tool in Tiffany’s self-discovery. He said, “it helps me think and feel through things and gain insight I might not have gotten otherwise.”
For Val, tarot is a reflective tool. They described the cards as “not magical, not predictive, just a way to ground myself and notice what’s going on beneath the surface. It’s a space where I can hear myself more clearly.” They said tarot reminds them that “even in moments of uncertainty, I have access to insight, imagination, and choice. That feels grounding, especially in a world that often tries to pull us away from ourselves.”
Lisa likes to pull cards for friends. She may do a simple three-card spread for past, present, and future. While she doesn’t believe tarot has any prescriptive powers, she sees the cards as a tool for communication.
Ahead of each New Year she invites her friends to, “send me a number and I give them a short reading.” While she usually forgets the number immediately (this year, she did readings for about 50 friends!), her friends will reference them throughout the year.
Lisa said, “I find a lot of joy in that, especially as tarot can be brilliant for compounding something someone is already thinking. Whether you believe in them or not, they can feel like a nudge from the universe and that’s often a springboard for action.”
Personally, I’ve become interested in the concept of ‘shadow work’ and using tarot to recognise my own misguided assumptions about myself. By asking questions like “why do I deserve to be unhappy?” and reflecting on my own interpretation of the cards pulled, tarot gives me a chance to identify and heal beliefs about myself that I hadn’t put words to before.
As I explore different ways of practicing tarot, I find myself wanting to be careful not to over-simplify or misinterpret practices I don’t have a full understanding of.
Val is very mindful of where different practices come from. They said, “some decks or rituals borrow from cultures that aren’t ours, and it’s worth being intentional about that. They make a conscious effort to, “try to root what I do in my own heritage – Irish folklore, land-based connection – and ways of knowing that feel like coming home rather than borrowing someone else’s.”
In many ways, Val sees tarot as an opportunity to connect with their Irish heritage, sharing: “For Irish people, there’s also something comforting about returning to forms of knowing that feel older than the institutions that rejected us.”
For some, practicing tarot may feel sacred, for others, it may feel rebellious. However it’s practiced, tarot cards can guide us back to ourselves in ways that feel loving, intuitive, and healing, and that’s powerful.
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