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“T4T” is where trans folks can speak with each other directly, from the heart, without having to make ourselves legible to cis society. Here, we will tell stories that center our joy and our pleasure, our rage and our resilience, our quirks, our dreams, our love. Here, no experience or idea is too niche or too wacky — we care about what you care about. Read more from the series here.
Numbers have long played a ritualistic role in my life. When I was in grade school, my mom would rub a gray chandlo, a dot of pigment, on me in threes — on my forehead, neck, and hair — every day before I left. She’d lay her hand on my head and say a prayer in Gujarati — twice. Then, she’d ask me to pick a number between one and 720. I later learned that she looked this number up in a numerology book and used its corresponding meaning for guidance that day. For example, if I chose 219, it reminded me to keep my mind cool and put my ego aside; 500 instructed me to light agarbatti, or a stick of incense, to bring success; 710 told me to keep faith. Because of my mom and this practice, I continued to find comfort in numbers and rituals.
As a confused college student, I found myself drawn to tarot as it reminded me of the rituals I went through as a child. Newly on my own, I craved that structure, that feeling of being connected to something larger than myself. I wanted to believe that I didn’t have full control over every single thing in life. I wanted to place myself in the context of “bigger” things like the universe, karma, spirituality, and faith.
I bought my first deck online. Once it arrived, I immediately felt like I was holding something special. The printed illustrations reminded me of colored pencil drawings — soft and bold at the same time, imperfect in that you could see all the small lines and strokes that blended together to create the full image. On the back of the cards, there was a floral design flowing around the edges. In the center, there were four overlapping circles, perhaps signifying life’s cyclical nature.
To learn the practice, I would sit alone in my bedroom, pulling cards when I first woke up to set the course of the day. Then I started bringing the deck to parties, so my friends and I could give each other readings. Through the deck and the stories it weaved, we’d tell each other that despite the way it may feel, everything was — eventually, somehow — going to be okay. Soon enough, I carried the deck on me at all times; I pulled a card when I was having a bad day and needed comfort; when I was having a good day and wanted to be nudged to lean into that sense of satisfaction; when I wanted to explore life beyond the constraints of the present, or any cultural and societal expectations.
The cards didn’t simply tell the future. They unlocked stories about my boundaries, my demons, my childhood, and my power. They provided insight into my innermost truths, a reflection of my inner world and things that I wasn’t ready to confront.
Though I came to terms with my fluid sexuality early in life, I’d always struggled with my gender identity. In college, I felt even more pressure to “figure out” my gender. And I tried to take small steps toward doing so: I cut my wavy, waist-length hair to my shoulders; I took off the she/her pronouns on all my socials; I asked one of my professors to refer to me with they/them pronouns; I read articles and memoirs by nonbinary and genderfluid writers. Though their experiences of constant suffocation within the gender binary resonated with me, I still couldn’t recognize these experiences as my own.
Growing up as a femme-presenting person in a multigenerational, immigrant household, gendered expectations suffused everyday life. In college, though I still identified somewhat with womanhood, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to me than that. I wasn’t just a woman. I felt more like a being, not a man nor a woman, but someone floating in the in-between, in the gray space. I didn’t want to make myself fit within binary categories, I wanted to destroy them. Tarot helped me do so by showing me that my gender doesn’t have to be an assignment or role to take up, but rather a place to play.
Tarot offered a model for how I could blur the binary. Though there are kings and queens in the decks, they exist more so as energies, rather than men and women. Death is rarely literally death, but rather, a change, or rebirth of sorts. The High Priestess signifies divine knowledge and reflection — things (or, yes, people) are not always what they first appear to be. One reading at a time, tarot led me to rethink the way I presented myself and who I really was, beyond what I thought I was supposed to be and toward who I could be, who I was.
Tarot makes me feel small in the best way possible. It reminds me that it’s not my job to have all the answers all the time. In tarot, we are all traveling the Fool’s Journey, a metaphor for making one’s way through life. All cards hold moments of growth and revelation, leading you to not only discover yourself, but look beyond — to the world around you and how you fit in. All major arcana cards, or the 22 most recognizable named ones, represent a stage of the journey. At the start of his journey, the Fool encounters the Magician and High Priestess, the two forces that make up the world. The Magician is the more “masculine” power that stands for conscious awareness. The High Priestess is the more “feminine” power that represents the mysterious unconscious, or our unrealized potential. Both are necessary to achieve balance, to create a whole person, a full journey.
At the end of his journey, the Fool is reborn and faces Judgment, which allows him to shed his previous self and make way for his true person to emerge. With this newfound discovery of self, he can reenter the World free of doubt and fear. The future brims with promise and possibility, and the Fool settles into his place in the World. It may not be permanent, as life appears in cycles, but it feels right for the moment.
Tarot may not have told me exactly who I am, but it did clarify whom I’m not. And it’s in this space, between certainty and obligation, that I find the freedom to write my own story of self. It’s in this space, opened through tarot, that I can revel in my growth and intuition; that I reclaim my life and shape my world.
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