I think this is a really important kind of perspective to have. It is not perfect at all but there is a lot of good in it and I liked it more than I was expecting to in some respects, given that there were some bits of it described super unfavorably by people I know. I didn't really read those bits as badly though (with the 2/3/4 of swords, I think?)

Even with, the Six of Wands (which is one of the rare tarot cards that tends towards a very positive polarity), the author has this to say:

I also find this book was HEAVY on American society and heavy on trauma. There was no room for anyone outside of American and there was very little room for joy.

Sad news. After ongoing issues with my (now ex-) hosting company, I have lost the entire contents of the Little Red Tarot archive. Cassandra Snow’s long-running and much-loved series on the Little Red Tarot community blog has been published in book form! TW: Biphobia, whorephobia, discussion of sex work and sugar babies, drugs, sex, suicide mention, outing, queerbait culture, harassment in clubs/bars.The High Priestess is all about feeling our truth, and there are few, if any, things more awakening than sex. this book is so great! so much good information for tarot readers of all levels, with really deep and thoughtful alternate/expanded readings for queer querents. highly recommend regardless of how a reader identifies, as it's just good to have multiple perspectives on the cards. Queering tarot asks us to do more than reimagine, it requires us to create new meanings for the cards. To live radically with the 78 cards, we must first find what is radical within their archetypes.

Also for a book that seems to pride itself on its intersectionality, I wish that they had chosen anything other than a skinny, white blond haired femme for their cover art. Cassandra has been reading tarot for over about 14 years and has “gone pro” for about 9 years. You can find out more at www.cassandra-snow.com or support their work and get exclusive content at patreon.com/cassandrasnow. I love the non-heteronormative, non-gender-binary interpretations Snow offers in this book. While many interpretations obviously stem from the author's personal experiences, I think that level of personalization is a strength. They also do an admirable job of providing potential interpretations from identities/experiences they don't share without claiming to speak for those voices. The book has great, often critical advice for both personal readings and doing readings for others. While I know the author originally wrote all these as blog posts and just compiled them together, I wish they put more effort into editing. It really does seem slapped together as "good enough". There isn't really flow from one card to the next, and there is an insane amount of repetition. Issues I've not seen in other tarot books I've read. It makes the quality of this book feel more amateur. When we choose to queer tarot, to insist on the queerness inherent in tarot as a tool, we find ourselves in the cards. Queerness and the CardsI wanted to enjoy this book so bad. I give it 3 stars because it’s the first tarot book I’m aware of to be written with a queer lens, and that is so valuable in and of itself. I’ll start with the criticisms first then end on a high note. Also, for a book about rejecting gender norms, there is a lot of discomfort around masculine energy. To explain the issue in a microcosm, Snow describes the Empress card as representative of mothering energy but encourages us to think of a mother as something beyond gender. A mother can be found in men, and doesn't necessarily have to include womanhood- but in the very same section condemns the Emperor card as a card that "bullies you into submission." Maggie On You Need Help: Am I Erasing Bisexuality? " Thank you for this! I’ve been on this journey recently too, and having grace and compassion for yourself is really…" Second issue. The descriptions of the minor Arcana cards are lumped together in pairs and three somes. This doesn't clarify the cards, it muddies the interpretation and seems lazy when we are talking about queer perspectives on Tarot. I think adding a spin of Queerness to each card as it's own section of interpretation would have been better. the Wands usually refer to the aspect of our life in which we are most passionate about. The Wands represent ambition, passion, and lend well to queer readings, as queer folks often experience a passionate relationship with their queer identity. Wands traditionally are likened to penises, so in your readings, be careful not to assume the presence of a penis indicates a person who identifies as male.

And speaking of negative, oh boy is this book largely that! There are CONSTANT references to how badly queer people are treated, how much we suffer, how little progress there is, how everyone hates us, how isolated we are, etc etc. I think general references of activism is fine, I get it, we all get it. But the constant mention of it gets tiring. For a book where I'd like to feel seen and heard, I don't like being reminded about how much I'm not. It feels draining for me to read through sections where it's mentioned. (It's a large part of why this book took me forever to read, and while I ultimately gave up on it.) I'd love some more happy and positive examples of queer rep and readings with the cards, and not just mentions of our difficulties and hardships. Very few cards made me feel empowered. Most of them only focus on our collective trauma. How do we bring the practice of queering the tarot into our everyday practice? Begin by questioning what you think you know about tarot. Let it guide you towards more complex meanings. Stop trying to nail everything down. As a writer, tarot is also one of Cassandra’s focuses, and she authored the newly released Queering the Tarot book from Weiser/Red Wheel Publishing. Cassandra’s tarot writing has been seen at Little Red Tarot, The Column, Take Your Pills and Northern Lights Witch among others. I wish the card interpretations felt more three-dimensional. Rather than discussing how archetypal symbols can relate to common queer experiences, it felt more like defining the cards as a sign of a particular common queer experience. To me, there’s a major difference between a symbol and a sign. A sign directs our attention toward something very specific that requires no further interpretation. Symbols involve in-depth interpretations that are semi-universal, or threaded through various associations and schemas. Join me and Amelia for a cosy Christmas Eve sleepover where we discuss our favourite festive traditions and read a letter I wrote to my first boyfriend when I was 16 and didn’t know bisexuality existed.While I empathize people saying that despite not liking the book, they still think it's important, I question how important it can be if it's done so poorly. For a book that markets itself about being inclusionary and about the queer community as a whole, to write a book where the focus is almost entirely about your own personal views/experiences, and how we should change our style to fit those specific views/experiences, that feels...well, exclusionary. And kind of bigoted, tbh. I can appreciate the idea of this book, but I cannot find myself recommending it. I've found more queer readings and understanding of tarot in non-queer focused books. This one felt often close-minded, ignorant, or extremely biased. (And the Swords section was just...I have no words. We are not therapists, and to associate swords with mental illness is insane to me.) The more we work with Tarot, the more we realize that binaries don't exist and everything is fluid-gender, meaning, even time. We come to realize that we're all creatures made of earth and air, fire and water, all four elements bound together by the fifth element: spirit. Fifth Spirit Tarot goes beyond the gender binary, queering the archetypes with 78 beautifully illustrated and hand-lettered cards by queer and non-binary tarot reader, teacher, and writer Charlie Claire Burgess. The big problem with it, however, is that it assumes a pretty specific queer experience - a lot of it reads like some mixed assumption that we’re wonderful activists or some sort of artistic bohemians, when a lot of us work normal, boring industry jobs and have hobbies like computer programming or reading occult books. It feels like it assumes that queer means deeply involved in the American queer community, but not all queer people are or want to be. Swords correspond with the element Air. “The swords do not always bring us what we want, but they do get us what we need,” writes Snow. Swords correspond with mental clarity, intellect, and reason. The Swords relate to mental health, and in readings, it is important to remember the unique challenges queer people face in receiving mental health treatment.