Full disclosure: I can’t figure out homosexuality or other-than-heterosexuality in anyone’s natal chart for certain, but I also don’t think most people can either. I mean that I can’t find any cookie-cutter formula for determining sexual or romantic preference. I also think that most astrologers who say they can are just reflecting their own views on sexuality or the views of their prevailing culture.

With that being said, most modern astrologers come from cultures in which heterosexuality is a norm and all other things are considered outliers for a minority. They’re also from cultures in which gender is binary and entirely wrapped up in sexual or romantic preferences, which are largely the same…though we know that this has never really been the case.

Looking at it that way, there is “normal,” meaning heterosexuality that no one actually looks for in the natal chart, and then there’s all the other stuff, which is considered deviation. Deviations from the norm are usually determined from poorly placed planets and harsh aspects by certain planets, planets in the 6th house, 8th house, 12th house, and so on. The problem is making assumptions about what is the norm.

The first mistake is taking heterosexuality for granted.

Astrology doesn’t take into consideration race, gender, sexual orientation, culture, and a lot of the identities we hold dear: it’s a map of the heavenly landscape as viewed by humans wherever they are on Earth whenever they’re looking up, and the humans use this map as a guide to navigate the strange and evolving terrain of the firmament below.

Just never assume anything as “normal” when it comes to natal chart analysis because you can’t assume anything is “normal” when it comes to human beings. Astrology just is; it’s the interpretations that are subject to the bias of the interpreter. Granted, I’ve never had a client ask me “am I gay?” There are way better ways to tell than reading an astrological chart. Even if I were to say yes, I also don’t think anyone needs cosmic permission to like what they like, because you may be born with your preferences, or they may ebb and flow, or you may find that one outlier who is not a member of your preferred group but nonetheless it’s something you want to pursue.

And that’s fine. That’s the human experience, and you’re not going to ever hear me blathering on about the balance of polarities because we’re all men and women and other things in between over the course of this lifetime and the ones that came before and we will continue to be over the course of other lifetimes.

With that being said, we tend to stick with what we know, and moreover, stick with what we like, so chances are if you were a man in a previous life, you’d likely choose to be a man in this one, and if you were homosexual in a previous life, you’d likely choose to be homosexual in this life. It doesn’t really make sense for a soul in one lifetime to say “hm…in my next life, I’d like to see what it’s like to have sex with another man,” since a man can actually do that in any lifetime.

Human sexuality has two equal imperatives.

The oldest imperative is the biological one, which is reproduction. The second one is social bonding. We don’t really need one to support the other, because social bonding with a sexual partner doesn’t always produce offspring and doesn’t necessarily mean that the pair who have sex will be good parents anyway. But people who are sexually attracted to each other are more likely to help the other one survive in one way or the other, from offering gifts, or shelter, or welcome into a social group.

In the natal chart, the desire and ability to make a family that includes offspring manifests irrespective of sexuality. Also in the natal chart, how, why, when, and with whom one seeks out sex and romance manifests in the natal chart irrespective of gender.

What about Mars and Venus? The Sun and the Moon?

What about them? Everyone has Mars and Venus and the Sun and Moon in their charts because they’re in the sky when everyone is born. They represent energies, not fixed matter. This energies can be broadly categorized as male and female, but overall:

Venus is what you find attractive and how you attract;

Mars is what you do go get what you’re attracted to;

The Sun is who you want to be in the world;

The Moon is instinct, emotion, and need.

These things exist irrespective of gender.

With that being said, you maybe can intuit some things from the natal chart that may tend toward not normative gender and sexual identities. If…

…The Sun and/or Ascendant, Venus and Mars are in the same sign in the house, the individual is highly attracted to people who are very much like themselves, perhaps even physiologically.

The Sun, Chart ruler or Venus is in the 7th house, the individual wants to partner with someone who is attractive in the same ways they’re attractive;

There’s a stellium in Aries that includes Venus and Mars (the ME sign; a clue someone may like someone like themselves or who they aspire to be);

Venus, Mars, and Uranus are conjunct regardless of sign;

Venus and Mars are in the 11th house;

Uranus is in the 7th house or 8th house and makes an aspect to a personal planet;

Pluto is in the 1st house aspecting Venus and/or Mars;

Saturn is making a harsh aspect to Venus or Mars AND the individual identified as male or female, respectively.

However, none of these things are definite signs of not being homosexual because you have to take into consideration the circumstances. Someone who dies in infancy could very well be bisexual, but who would ever know for sure?

How is this different from seeing sexual deviation in the natal chart?

Deviation is a cultural value, and the taboo of one’s culture is an 8th house matter. If homosexuality is taboo in the individual’s culture, it’s an 8th house matter. If it’s something that has to be kept a secret, it’s a 12th house matter. However, if it’s okay to be out of the closet, one’s sexuality as an identity with a group is an 11th house matter. However, heterosexuality is not an 11th house matter because it’s not an identity because it’s normative.

Anyone with planets in the 11th house likely has a strong need to identify with a group, but it’s not just about sexuality. It could be ethnicity, ability, profession, lifestyle, or some other thing as well as sexuality orientation.

But is the 11th house race?

There’s the sand trap. What is your group?

Notwithstanding race in America, where race is pretty much everything but white people task themselves with the burden of always pretending it isn’t, racial identity as a personal, adopted identity that one invests in is an 11th house matter because it’s above and beyond or somehow different from the way everyone else identifies. For example, if you’re the only black kid in an all-white town, or if you’re also Deaf, or if you’re the child of African immigrants, or if you recently moved from Queens to rural Alabama, your identity will be somewhat different from others in your race. This should come as no surprise to anyone who doesn’t think that black people only come in two dimensions.

And what if you’re a woman or transgender?

Well there you go. Women born into patriarchy don’t all have occupied 11th houses. Women who resist don’t all have occupied 11th houses.

But someone asked me to look at their crush’s birth chart to figure it out.

Don’t do it.

If they don’t actually know, then you’re wasting your time.

Actually, I just recommend never doing “crush” synastry or natal analysis with compatibility in mind because limerence is a psychedelic drug that makes us see what we want to see, hear what we want to hear, and blow minor things out of proportion. It’s entirely possible for a relationship to look good on paper but one person is just not interested for one reason despite all of the otherwise strong astrological evidence that seems to say match-made-in-heaven. People don’t actually weigh the pros and cons before deciding to fall in love with someone, and they don’t step back and assess the relationship globally before entering it.

But easier said than done, right, especially if you are an astrologer and you can do this shit all night long, adding asteroids, hypotheticals, and minor planets, and then “realizing” that maybe you have the wrong birth time, and actually, your crush was born 30 minutes earlier or maybe an hour later because now that works nicely.

Shut up. You know what I’m talking about.

This wasn’t what this blog entry was about.

But that’s where it went.

Anyway.

Most astrology of the personality is hindsight. If we figure it all out, we can apply it to the present and perhaps even the future. We all love eureka moments of any kind, even if they don’t really serve a purpose. I generally avoid astrological recipes, cause the only real purpose they serve is set things in stone, and as we know, people may not physically evolve nearly as quickly as their attitudes and beliefs do.