Queer Tarot Part II
This interview is a continuation of our interview with tarot reader Sam Valentine from The Advocacy Issue 2025
Sam Correia: How do you approach reading tarot for other people, especially when it comes to the tradition of tarot?
Sam Valentine: I think allowing yourself to just try to play with it, to experiment with it, and just see what comes up…you can’t go wrong. I don’t think you can go wrong in tarot generally, unless you’re being particularly exploitive, evil, manipulative, or something like that. But if you’re interacting in good faith with love in your heart, I don’t really think you can go wrong with tarot. I think releasing perfectionism is what has really helped me use tarot as something that’s helpful to me and something that, I believe and hope, can be helpful to the person I’m reading for.
It’s important to me to be clear about how I use tarot. We talked about tarot as a tradition that has been used in many different ways. So with my approach to tarot, I make it clear what my use of the tarot is, so that if folks who do want a really clear answer from the tarot, know that I’m not the one for that. And there’s many readers who are for that and who do that very well. For me, it’s building a relationship of trust and consent with folks I read for. So they know what to expect from me if I’m not the one for them, they can find someone who is, and that’s kind of what it is for me is, being clear, boundaries, communicating in a way about what my intentions are, so that folks know what to expect from reading for me.
But in terms of what actually happens in a tarot reading, I do in-person readings and I also do distant written readings. So obviously an in-person reading is a conversation, which is how I like it, but in a written reading, somebody can share a question, share something that’s on their heart. There’s no requirement to do so, but somebody can do that when they’re booking a reading with me. And then I pull cards in response to that, or if they’ve asked for an open reading, I just kind of pull cards for that person with the intention of helping them in the moment.
Another interesting facet about tarot reading that takes place not in person, not in the time space together, is that it kind of becomes a story I can offer that person. And they can feel that story or they cannot, on whatever level it resonates. I just send it into the ether and I hope and feel that you may find something helpful.
But it’s also important to me to be open to feedback and response, as we also discussed earlier, tarot has been a tool that has been exploited by many, that has been extractive, that has been appropriative. And so I always want to be open to hearing feedback from clients and people I read for, if there’s anything that came up in their reading that they want to let me know they felt I’m uncomfortable with. I just always want to be open, humble, and available for any feedback.
Do you engage with tarot in your day to day life? I know you do readings for people, and I know you have your website and social media and stuff, but do you have a daily practice that you do for yourself?
When I started with tarot, I did. I would do daily pulls, and I think that helped me learn tarot in a way that felt very personal to me. Since my practice has evolved, I do not enforce any structure upon myself. I’m a Gemini, I just can’t be doing it. Rules are not something that have always appealed to me, to put it mildly. I would say I am someone who does need structure in certain ways and the structure that tarot can provide in itself is the structure that I like. I don’t like to put any temporal structures for me on how I engage with it.
So now that I’m in my, I’ll say, mature tarot years, I feel like I go to it when I feel like I need that connection. So if I’m having particularly challenging moments - you know, life offers them - I go to my tarot deck, and it can be a helpful grounding tool for me because I have this established relationship with it.
So sometimes it’ll be like, oh, I’m having a hard time, let me do a little tarot spread for myself. And other times it’ll just be when you’re in those moments of “why,” you know what I mean, just why, sometimes I’ll pull a card and all I need to see is what it is. And sometimes I’ll just roll my eyes and be, wow, thanks. Understood, heard. Sometimes that’s all it is too.
What do you think is the gayest card of the tarot?
I’m gonna have to say something that may not be expected by all. But I kind of feel like the lover’s card is the gayest card despite how, obviously in many decks or what many would consider traditional imagery, you might say it’s not a gay card, you know what I mean? Based on the appearance of the figures in many artworks.
However, the appearance of that card has gone through a lot of change, evolution, reinterpreting and reimagining by amazing artists all throughout the indie tarot world. So I don’t think we need to feel held back by that imagery. I understand obviously if it holds people back, that’s OK. But for me, I feel that’s the gayest card; it’s the card connected in my opinion most closely with Gemini. It’s a kind of a duality. It’s a card of the space between perceived binaries and the falsity of binary.
I feel the lover’s card is really just about confronting the self or confronting another, and seeing the perceived difference and perceived space between those things. And finding ways to reimagine that space to be in that space, to not be in an absolute oriented mindset, but to be in the unknown in between. So yeah, I would say lovers probably.
Do you have any book recommendations for people wanting to learn more about tarot?
So you did mention Queering the Tarot by Cassandra Snow, a polemic text in the field, I would say. Cassandra Snow also has a new book out called Tarot in Other Words that they edited, and it’s an amalgamation of essays from a lot of really great tarot practitioners, thinkers, writers, etc, including my friends Maria Minnis and Rebecca Scolnick. And also Charlie Claire Burgess has an essay in there, the creator of the 5th Spirit Tarot Deck. They’re also the author of a new book called Queer Devotion. So I would recommend both of those new books for Queer tarot topics.
I, full disclosure, have not read them yet because they just came out this month. But I obviously respect both of their work, I know many people involved with both and they’re going to be great books, I can only assume.
What do you think it means to approach the tarot “queerly”?
What it means to approach the tarot “queerly” means as many things as there are queer tarot readers. And people who are not queer, who are engaging with tarot who don’t identify that way, I think there’s much to be gained by interacting with the work of queer tarot readers and what they put out there because I think they’re bringing expansive ways of thinking to the tarot, which can only benefit everyone, regardless of your personal life story, experiences, etc.
The work people are doing in queer tarot is good for all. And I think it helps to reckon with and understand tarot’s, past, present, future - to use a typical spread. In ways that are really respectful, thoughtful, and are taking the time to engage with tarot in ways that are…I don’t wanna say responsible, but grounded, ethical, sweet, lovely, all of those things. I just think everybody can benefit whether they’re queer or not from the work of queer tarot readers.
Find Sam Valentine’s tarot work at sam-valentine.com or on instagram @valentine.tarot
