Witchcraft is, in its purest essence, queer. It’s a practice that affirms reference to our truest selves, while also superseding oppressive, patriarchal and heteronormative hierarchies. It’s a practice that encourages authentic self-expression in addition to providing tools for self-preservation, should that self-expression be threatened. It is usually something that has historically protected minority groups, and given power to those that needed it essentially the most. 

As a spiritual practice that requires honest and unbridled expression of oneself, it is not any surprise that throughout history there have been several recorded accounts of queer, trans and gender non-conforming identities inside pagan and spiritual spaces. Although, since queer identities have been systematically erased over the centuries and historical figures largely didn’t construct gender as we do, it’s unimaginable to return to any conclusive statements across the gender identities of those figures.

Throughout history, masculine clothing, and signifiers of masculinity and authority like armour and swords, were secretly reappropriated by women searching for power in society. Joan of Arc, who was described as a “monstrous, disorderly and notorious woman who dresses in men’s clothes”, dressed as a person with the intention to fight in battle and was tried for witchcraft and paganism, before being burned on the stake for the crime of cross-dressing.

Margaret Murray, a noted Egyptologist, archaeologist and first-wave feminist, who is usually considered the mother of the fashionable Wicca movement although lots of her theories about witchcraft have since been discredited, suggested that Joan was a member of the Dianic cult and that her male attire was an outward sign of that pagan faith. During her trial, Joan refused to stop wearing men’s clothing, saying that she would quite die. “For nothing on the earth will I swear to not arm myself and placed on a person’s dress,” Leslie Feinberg quotes her saying before adding, “Joan of Arc suffered the excruciating pain of being burned alive quite than resign her identity.”

In religious and spiritual spaces, female-born figures like St Marinos the monk, Pope Joan and Anastasia the Patrician also used clothing to pass as male, transgressing gender that otherwise limited their very own spiritual authority. In ancient Rome, priests of the goddess Cybele, generally known as the Galli, castrated themselves after joining the order and subsequently dressed only in women’s clothing and jewellery.

Outside Europe, many cultures have had spiritual figures that exist outside of a Western binary idea of gender too. The Meru tribe in pre-colonial Kenya was led by “mugawe”, highly respected spiritual leaders who were biological men, often gay, who wore women’s clothes and hairstyles. In Indian mythology, the hijras, who include transgender and intersex people, got special power by Lord Rama, while Hindu gods Shikhandi and Mohini were in a position to transform from their gender assigned at birth.

Trans identities are magick – what’s more magickal than transmuting and remodeling into your most authentic self? Pax (she/they/a) discovered her practice around the identical time she moved into her trans-femme identity, deeply intertwining the 2: “In consequence, my practice in magick has at all times been about rebirth, renewal, healing, transformation and love”. For Pax, this rebirthing of oneself is a fundamental a part of our own personal development. “All people must have the proper and privilege to have the ability to shape ourselves in our divine image,” she says. Is magic not an art of shape-shifting, renewal and of change? Witches like Pax truly embody this.

“Trans identities are magick – what’s more magickal than transmuting and remodeling into your most authentic self?”

Pax believes that everybody, trans or not, should take into consideration their very own perpetual renewal. “All people should strive to transition and grow towards comfort quite than discomfort and fear”. The true witch is brave and seeks constant self-becoming despite reservations. She understands that to be a witch is to be in constant communion with the life/death/rebirth cycle, and trusts that to vary is to affirm the multifaceted nature of life and the fluid energy that surrounds it.

While traditional witchcraft includes elements of gender essentialism and binaries, witchcraft circles have come to grasp gender more fluidly in understanding the “masculine” and “feminine” as energies, versus genitalia or gender assigned at birth. Through this understanding, anyone can embody masculine or feminine energy, sometimes each at the identical time – or neither in any respect. This understanding also allows for fluidity – you may discover with one in a single moment, and one other in one other. It is usually a nod to mythological stories of trans deities who move freely between genders, and are revered as sacred and holy for his or her ability to achieve this. 

Creator of Bending the Binary: Polarity Magic in a Non-Binary World and high priestess of a majority queer coven, Deborah Lipp (she/her) states the importance of working with higher energies while honouring the fluidity of gender. “Bending the binary [in witchcraft] is about accessing the facility while unhooking from oppressive paradigms of gender and orientation,” she says. Lipp believes within the inherent magical nature of gender and the importance of interacting with gender’s sacred energy without falling into restrictive binaries. Lipp’s coven meets within reach of the Statue of Liberty, taking her message of inclusiveness and protection as their guide. 

For witch Florence (she/her), witchcraft is inherently queer, because it is about intentional shifts and changes. “To be a trans witch, is one step closer to the sting of mortal experience. Cis people don’t lead lives of constant social and physical change,” she says. There are qualities of sacred magick, tied to transmuting into oneself, that cis people may not experience in on a regular basis life. Trans and queer identities honour a more total and holistic experience of the self and of the divine.

For Florence, being trans is deeply intertwined with the history of witchcraft empowering the oppressed and ostracised. “The witch is usually depicted as someone on the outskirts of society who will not be accepted,” she says. Witchcraft gives a latest type of power and residential to those that have been denied secure spaces and respect prior to now. For quite a lot of trans-identifying people, on a regular basis life could be filled with microaggressions and acts of erasure. “It is that this distaste for our society that drove me to witchcraft.”

Witchcraft, with its fluid understanding of energy and myriad of gender-changing, unisex, bisexual, gay and trans deities, has the potential to supply a secure space that honours and values trans identities. True witches are alchemists of power, shifting disharmony into resilience and expression. They honour the legacy of ancestors of the craft in addition to historical queer figures – armour and cloak-clad – which have sought to liberate others and honour their truest selves, despite limited resources. Trans-identifying witches deserve more credit within the witchcraft community for transmuting into their most authentic form, and making a secure and inclusive space for individuals who are yet to return.