Queering Tarot's Court Cards
A queenly figure atop a key on a lime green background
Tarot's court cards are the most gendered part of the deck.
Some modern decks have addressed this by creating new, genderless terms for them. Names like "The Mentor" and "The Apprentice" pervade.
While I admire the creativity of such decks, the historical and social context of gender are hard to erase. Names change, but archetypes are what define tarot and those remain.
Sometimes these changes serve to highlight the question of gender in tarot rather than eliminating it. To me, erasing gender from tarot sidesteps important conversations about gender itself. It also seems to view historical views of gender as all that can be read in tarot.
What about our understandings of gender and power right now? Is there no way to make those primary, especially given the queer and trans nature of tarot?
What can we do? Here's what I propose:
1. We can respect the historical context that shaped tarot.
2. We can also think critically about what is gained and lost from gendering or degendering tarot's court cards.
3. We can recognize that gender is one of tarot's historical contexts.
4. We can view gender within tarot in radical, progressive ways.
5. We can appreciate that tarot doesn't just offer us traditional roles for women and men. It also depicts transgressive archetypes and transgender archetypes. In this light, the court cards are meant to communicate gender as we experience it under patriarchal power. But that doesn't mean there is no queerness there.
Let's get into it!
Kings, Queens, and Queers
Most conversations about gender and the court cards center around the king and queen.
The king gets to be the dominant force, the capstone of the suit. In this light, the queen is rendered only second best.
Yet what we know about Pamela Coleman-Smith undermines this logic. She did not depict powerless, second best queens. The depiction on the Smith-Rider-Waite deck shows the queens in power, albeit of a different variety from the king. Different does not mean less.
I don't think of Kings and Queens as primary power and secondary power. I think of the Queen's power as private or internalized power, and the King's power as public or externalized power. Different Queens and Kings have different relationships to that power.
This, to me, is a more progressive way to view gender and tarot's court card monarchs.
But tarot itself, with its numerological context reveals something interesting. As with the Empress preceding the Emperor, thus creating the context for his power, the Queens contextualize the King. But they are also numbered 13 which reduces to 4, the Emperor number, the Temperance number.
There's inherent queer power behind tarot's Queens. And in a numerological light, there's queer references embedded in the spot where they sit.
The Kings and Queens of tarot's court cards seem anti-queer when looked at in their original context. That context is still important. But what about our contexts?
When I think of kings, I think of drag kings, the only kind of king I respect. For Queens there's Lady Macbeth and Cleopatra.
A queen can rule alone. A queen is often more powerful and effective than a king.
Knights and Other Warriors
The knights, while less gendered than the queen and king, have an implicit gloss of manhood.
Yet this neglects everyone from the Mino Warrior Women of Dahomey to Joan of Arc.
At base, the knight's role is to bring information and novel energy to a spread. They can also symbolize approaching maturity.
Knights often served the king in a very close fashion. This meant that they were privy to things that no one else could know. This is part of their association with information.
The horse they ride can symbolize travel and rushing among other things. Their historical role can sometimes mean protection, kinship, and a rise in station.
Tarot's Pages: True Proximity
The pages are often reduced to the role of youth within tarot. This forgets the role of a courtly page.
A page was a servant. They may have been a cupbearer or a messenger. In exchange, the page could study under the person to whom they attended, and learning combat, weaponry, hawk tending and other skills.
A page would sometimes serve a lord in battle. This proximity and vulnerability is the page's strength in tarot.
Yes, they are learning, but they have the ear of a powerful person in a disarming way. This is a superpower.
The page's heart for humble service is far more important than any assumptions about their gender.
Even in their innocence they are watching, studying, learning, and serving. Eventually that hard work will pay off.
Tarot's court cards are gendered. That doesn't mean how gender is read within them has to be immutable. We can be open, even queer, with signifiers without eliminating gender altogether if we wish. Degendering the tarot is only one way to push a modern tarot practice to the left.
TEMPERANCE QUEER TAROT IS A BLACK DISABLED TRANS OPERATED SERVICE. IF YOU LIKED THIS POST OR FOUND IT HELPFUL, SIGN UP FOR THE NEWSLETTER OR DONATE VIA PAYPAL TO SUPPORT CARTOMANCY AND CONJURE IN OUR COMMUNITY. FOLLOW TEMPERANCE QUEER TAROT ON INSTAGRAM AND TIKTOK!
