Introduction: A Journey Into Queer Magic(s)

Queer, strange, weird. Wyrd, the Old English term for fate or personal destiny, twisted through time to say that the Other is that which pulls upon the threads of reality.

As both magical beings and individuals who dance outside the journeys of heteronormativity and cisnormativity, the larger culture has deemed us to be queer, strange, and weird. Our practices and daily lives do not fit into the realities painted as being "normal." Because of this, individuals who fit within LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, agender, and more) have the opportunity to embrace that weirdness, and in turn, their wyrd-ness, and the wyrd of the world.

While we may celebrate and take pride in our fabulous and weird selves, Otherness is often feared by society at large. When we talked with other queer-spectrum individuals, we found that they had also experienced othering and rejection based on their identities or found places where they were overly-embraced. Being placed on a pedestal in pagan communities simply for being queer is certainly not the same as being vilified, but it is yet another form of othering that results in isolation. It is a kind of false visibility, one that praises part of us while ignoring the rest. Even in groups whose pantheons have a diversity of queer and transgender deities, their practitioners often give a confused expression or cold shoulder to their fellow coven-mates, troth-siblings, and fellow journeyers in spirit. In some Asatru groups, for example, racism, sexism, and homophobia run rampant while their followers preach that they bow before Odin, a god who has danced outside of gender norms by both cross-dressing and being a practitioner of seiðr, a magical craft practiced traditionally by women. Women-only Wiccan groups have turned away their trans sisters time and time again, showing the transphobia embedded in a faith that claims to worship all acts of love and pleasure.

In other spiritual traditions – especially those focused on transcendent rather than immanent spirituality – a queer or trans identity held by a practitioner is sometimes viewed as unimportant or unenlightened, a material distraction that they must overcome. This supposed spiritual truth is just one example of spiritual bypassing, or using spiritual ideas to avoid anything difficult or painful to understand or process. In this case, it means ignoring our differences and the way those impact our lives, glossing over that variation in favor of a "we are all one" mentality. This false idea of spiritual attainment is further used to dismiss anything outside of what is considered "normal" as frivolous or a waste of energy that could be better spent working toward some greater spiritual goal. Frequently this is seen in Western or Westernized traditions especially practiced by the most privileged among us who have little to no experience being the Other.

If an individual's queerness or non-normative gender is acknowledged within a spiritual group, it is often assumed to have no bearing on their spiritual practices or experiences. In these groups, all are expected to work within a heteronormative and cisnormative framework for spirituality. These frameworks were developed by straight cis people. Sometimes for the queer practitioner, this means ignoring rigid definitions of masculinity and femininity and focusing on a heterosexual union as the epitome of spiritual experience. This is invisibilizing and challenging at best, though many of us go along with it for lack of a queer- centric option. Those who are often assumed to be cis and straight – especially queer femmes, trans and nonbinary folks, and queer folks in other-gender partnerships – are even more pressured to conform and ignore their invisible identities, lest they get in the way of their spiritual pursuits.

LGBTQIA+ communities have their own problematic issues. Spirit-workers can be lifted up for being the epitome of queer, or ripped down for having any sort of magical beliefs or faith traditions. Just as the spiritual communities are not utopias, collections of people based on orientation or identity can also try to push away or erase differences. Plenty of gatekeeping occurs within queer communities. Those who do not fit into the current queer ideal are often ignored, treated as "not queer enough," and made invisible to their own people, or ostracized for "appearing straight," further perpetuating internalized notions of othering. This is becoming more apparent as our queer communities are being given a chance to face our unconscious (and sometimes conscious) bigotry head-on. After all, pride parades were once protest marches, and the work of Black Lives Matter and Trans Lives Matter are an opportunity to continue to reevaluate our biographies within LGBTQIA+ communities. By doing so, we have the capacity to continue to bring love, pleasure, and justice to the individuals these communities represent, while simultaneously working to end queer erasure, femme erasure, trans erasure, and the erasure of voices of color and indigenous populations within pagan and magical communities.

Having found that others in the world were running time and time again into these challenges, we recognized a very real need to acknowledge and celebrate our wyrd-ness and the ways that our queer identities and our spiritualities inform and encourage one another. From this place of celebration, we put out a call for people to participate in this project. We found that queer flowers of love and beauty are blooming everywhere. We are pushing our way through the cracks in the concrete and carving out spaces for our weird and wyrd ways to manifest. This book is about the blooms that have erupted as a form of resistance. They are a chance to glimpse the diversity of practices and experiences of queer folks that rise above the voices that say that we do not exist. We do exist. We've always existed. We're here, we're queer, and we are magical.

This book represents intersectional populations who are not only queer peoples (self-defined in a broad set of criteria by those participating), but those who practice magic, magick, or magics. We are neo-pagans, druids, agnostics, alchemists, elders, Buddhists, bruja, heathens, diviners, oracles, witches, Jews, atheists, polytheists, and ceremonial magicians. We are practitioners of Santeria, Vodou, Yoruba, Hellenismos, Ifá, Shinto, Huna, tantra, Feri, and Faery alike. We are eclectic beings beyond labels, and deep devotees of mystery cults. We are transgender, two-spirit, queer, agender, drag queens, lesbian, bisexual, gay, non- binary, shapeshifters, kinky, cross-dressers, and radicals who refuse to define ourselves.

We are individuals on the edges of normative culture. We have experienced intolerance, stigma, discrimination, violence, or worse from people who are angry about the many sides of our identities. We survive by turning to each other and lifting one another up. In that tradition, we, invite you to read these words. They contain our hearts and spirits. As you learn about each of us, know the power of your own heart and spirit in turn. This is your chance to channel the power that the larger culture has oppressed and our own queer kin have sometimes pushed aside. It is through projects like this one that we have an opportunity to make magic our own rather...