365 Tarot Spreads: Revealing the Magic in Each Day - Sasha Graham 2014

Gender-Bending Spread

On This Day

The Beatie family filed for divorce, and a legal mess ensued. It challenged the validity of the marriage and raised issues of reproductive rights and abilities for a transgendered person to legally maintain his or her legal identity.

Thomas Beatie, known as the world’s first pregnant man, gave birth to a daughter on this day in 2008. Beatie, a female-to-male transsexual, was legally recognized as a man when he married his wife, Nancy, who could not conceive. Thomas used artificial insemination to become pregnant and ultimately gave birth to three children.

Summation of Spread

The World card is seen by many cartomancers and occultists as a hermaphrodite, a figure equally male and female, representing the reconciliation of opposites and the experience of union.

Gender issues may be deeper in our consciousness than we realize. This spread provokes deep, thoughtful questions about what it means to be male and female. These questions also will aid in understanding masculine (swords and wands) and feminine (cups and pentacles) suits of tarot.

Cast Your Cards

1. What does “female” mean to me?

2. What does “male” mean to me?

3. How am I feminine?

4. How am I masculine?

5. What are the boundaries between gender?

6. How do I embrace both?

7. How would my life have been different if I had been born of the opposite sex?

8. What personal quality remains the same regardless of gender?