Sappho and PRIDE

So I went looking for an astrological reason that whole generations of young people seem dramatically more willing to express alternate sexualities than generations before them were, and, well, I may have found something.

I’ve always been especially interested in Sappho as an asteroid because Sappho is conjunct my own Sun. She’s one of those asteroids I’ve paid attention to for a long time, so when I started thinking about this question, she was one of the first places I looked. And to be clear, I am not saying an asteroid is “making people gay.” I don’t think astrology works that way, and I don’t think sexual orientation suddenly appeared in Gen Z. What has changed enormously is expression. Young people are far more willing to say, “I’m gay,” “I’m bisexual,” “I’m queer,” “I’m not sure what I am,” or simply, “I like this person and I don’t particularly care what category that puts me in.”

Sappho is one of the asteroids astrologers often look at when we’re talking about same-sex attraction, unconventional love, intense affection between people of the same sex, erotic and romantic expression, and love that doesn’t necessarily fit neatly into traditional boxes. And Sappho is doing something REALLY interesting right now. She’s in Virgo and making an extremely tight square to Uranus in Gemini.

If you know even a little astrology, you can probably see why my eyebrows went up. Uranus is the planet that says, “Why are we following this rule?” It represents liberation, rebellion, experimentation, disruption and breaking out of structures we’ve inherited simply because everybody before us followed them. And Uranus has moved into Gemini, which is language, labels, communication, curiosity, multiplicity, trying ideas on and talking about things people didn’t used to talk about.

Now put that Uranus in a hard aspect with Sappho, and that is a pretty spectacular symbol for talking about sexuality differently, naming things that weren’t named before, experimenting with categories and, for some people, refusing the old categories altogether.

But it gets stranger. Sappho is also sitting at roughly the apex of a configuration involving Pluto in Aquarius and Neptune in Aries. Pluto in Aquarius is already describing an enormous generational transformation in how groups, outsiders, communities and social identities function. Neptune in Aries is fascinating because Neptune dissolves boundaries while Aries says, “I AM.” So one of the great themes of this period may very well be the dissolution and reconstruction of some of the rigid identities we’ve traditionally used to explain who a person is.

And then right in the middle of this is Sappho: love, desire, same-sex affection and relationships that don’t necessarily follow the script, while Uranus is basically throwing a lightning bolt at her.

That’s when I thought: ohhhhhhh.

Maybe I’m not watching some mysterious phenomenon where suddenly an entire generation became fundamentally different from every generation that came before it. Maybe I’m watching a generation born into and coming of age during an astrological period that says: you don’t have to hide it. You don’t even necessarily have to define it. You can talk about it. You can question it. You can change the word you use for it. You can fall in love with somebody and figure out what you want to call yourself later.

And THAT seems much closer to what I’m actually seeing.

Gay people obviously existed when our grandparents were young. Bisexual people existed. People fell in love with people they weren’t “supposed” to fall in love with. The enormous difference was the cost of saying so. For many generations, admitting it could cost you your family, your job, your church, your reputation, your children, your safety or even your freedom.

So I’m beginning to wonder whether the astrological story here isn’t really, “Why are so many young people gay?” Maybe the much more interesting question is, “Why is this the generation that’s willing to tell us?”

And astrologically, Sappho square Uranus, with Pluto transforming Aquarius and Neptune dissolving old definitions of identity from Aries, is one hell of an answer.