Injustice
hope it worked out in the end, all those years ago Flavio
I decided to get into my Gay Tarot deck again recently and this card came up for me. Like so many here, I had an emotional reaction to the card. Mine was shock, why is it so one sidedly negative? Like horoskope88 posted about but I wanted to think about this card and work through it because I think it is a card you have to work through.
I am quite a advocate of social justice and human rights and campaign in that area but sometimes I can be naive and not see all the sides. Justice is not the blindfolded and fairly balanced statue that we see outside many courts and in other tarot cards, sometimes justice is just unfair or leaves the LGBT community out. In this card we see the Justice statue at the end of the corridor, she is behind bars with the sun shining behind her. The couple (if they are a couple) are separated in cells on either side of the corridor, reaching out their arms but not quite touching. The sun's rays slightly stream on to them and on the floor is the shadow of Justice. I would read this as LGBT justice is often partial (like some of the Sun (success) shining on to them) or they are left in the shadow of Justice sadly.
My country used to have homosexuality as an illegal crime which was overturned at the end of the 60's. It was an awful time and I am luckily enough to know some older LGBT folk who will share their stories from those times and even one man who was convicted. In my childhood it was illegal to educate the "promotion of homosexuality" in schools and universities, so we could not learn any gay sex education or history in schools. It was just an untalked about subject. This law was only overturned in 2003! Just after that we got Civil Unions as a way that they didn't have to deal with the gay marriage issue and religion. Just recently we finally got full gay marriage, the same as straight people. We have made so much progress, especially in the last 20 years and yet it's easy to be in the shadow of justice and locked out of fairness and equality still.
We have LGBT representation in the police, military and government and they proudly show this off at Gay Prides across the UK. It is fashionable to be visually supporting and linked to the LGBT community here now. Many businesses really want to get their brands associated with us, and yet some have horrible histories with the LGBT community and with funding dictators and corrupt governments across the world. The police here are trained in hate crimes to be as helpful as possible and I have helped 2 friends who had hate crimes committed against them but they didn't get justice. They can record the hate crime and be really sympathetic and helpful and understanding but most hate crimes don't have hard evidence or the victim willing to go through it all. Sometimes the police are not helpful at all still. LGBT and LGBT couples have trouble with institutions even though legally here they cannot treat us any different to straight people or refuse us service. For example, as a feminine gay man, security checks on the phone always cause a huge problem. My credit card company once thought I was not me and cut me off and blocked my card! It was very upsetting and they should have asked security questions rather than base it on my characteristics. I wrote to complain and they were just like deal with it. Another friend of mine phoned his bank to get a joint account with his boyfriend which is allowed, as we are treated the same as straight couples legally. But the operator read out from the script about setting it up and said "you and your girlfriend, need to send these details" and they both laughed that the script needed to be updated but it happened. It's like we have much
so much progress and yet we are not the same as straight people yet.
In Uganda, homosexuality is still very much illegal and the lgbt community seemed to be growing in voice. They really want a pride to celebrate themselves but each year they are not allowed it. So this year they had a private fashion show which was a party with LGBT people and straight people, men and women and they had a catwalk. Men and Women showed off clothes on it, with some men in drag and some trans people allowed to dress as their desired sex. It was behind closed doors but someone tipped off the police who arrived with their batons hitting people. The people inside were so brave and amazing, they recorded the whole thing on twitter, tweeting from their personal accounts with their names and faces on their profiles. There was photos and their first hand accounts. People quickly tried to get changed from their clothes (especially people in drag etc) and some of the main organisers were arrested and carted off. The world's media followed their tweets though and published them and the next day the arrested people arrived back, with no charges and not beaten too badly. The media and lgbt community of the world were watching this and they could not disappear the people or beat them too badly. But I shed a tear at the fact they posted these tweets of their stories with their real names and photos of themselves! So brave!
I think this reflects this card. How do you cope with being in the shadow of justice? I think this card should almost be called "injustice". But it's not enitrely one sided negative like I thought, this card is a wake up call that at any time we might not be treated fairly or the same as straight people! Even if there is legal protections or from organisations which now align themselves with the lgbt community. It doesn't reflect the reality of our lives, there is a lot of "pinkwashing" going on to look good but not always act good.
This card asks how we can deal with injustice and react to it and there is many LGBT people in jail cells around the world with people pressuring governments to be fair and just to them. For example Chelsea Manning is in a military prison in America. She wanted to change her sex but the military would not allow this and external pressure has helped her get her wish. Every so often she disappears and people can't contact her and there is a huge international fuss until contact is made again. This happens to other people across the world. The answer in this card is that the people cannot touch each other across the corridor but they can support each other as they are in the same position. We can support people even though we cannot touch them, we can embarrass and exert pressure by working together a as community. It historically works very well! Even though we are still in the shadow of justice we can take action and have options.
This card shocked me because it challenges my view about Justice frankly but it's something to be mindful about, this is a reality check. Things can still be unfair for us
