Next month at this time, I’ll be in Virginia. I’m not too happy about this, since Virginia has recently become the state with the most Neanderthal anti-gay legislation. (I’m sorry if I’m offending anyone who identifies as a Neanderthal.)

I wasn’t born in Virginia, but I lived there for 25 years. I went through many of my most dramatic transitions in that prim and proper state. In the burbs of Virginia, I was an alienated teenager, a hippie single mom, a postal worker, and eventually a fledgling dyke. It was in Virginia that I fell in love with the curly-haired Venezuelan woman who carried me away to South America.

I go back to Virginia every summer, checking in on family and close friends. I’ll do that again this summer. I’ll pick up my absentee ballot, too, hoping that maybe I can contribute to a change of government. (In Virginia, it isn’t likely that my vote will have much effect.)

As I tool down those Virginia highways, sporting my “We Are Everywhere” bumper sticker, I’ll be thinking about the recently passed and badly named Marriage Affirmation Act. Besides the scents of honeysuckle and new-mown grass and impending thunderstorms and car exhaust - the smells of a southern summer - I’ll be sniffing out the currents of intolerance and rigidity.

This bill should be called the “Straight People Panic Act”, since it doesn’t affirm anything, but rather denies and restricts. It prohibits not only same-sex marriage and civil unions, but (albeit vaguely) appears to deny any sort of partnership contract between people of the same sex. (Virginia already passed a law in 1997 denying gay people the right to marry, so this is definitely overkill.)

The recent bill was passed on April 23, when the moon, Venus and Mars were all conjunct in Gemini, and all opposed to Pluto in Sagittarius. The Gemini/Sagittarius axis does seem to be a common thread in gay-related events. The Stonewall chart has a prominent Gemini/Sagittarius influence as well, as do the charts for both the Vermont and Massachusetts pro-gay Supreme Court decisions.

So what does the Gemini/Sagittarius axis have to do with gay rights? This is the axis that’s related to the idea plane. Gemini is about the thoughts and speech of ordinary people, the hum of common discourse, the exchange of views. Newspapers, magazines, gossip, and shopping malls are all ruled by Gemini. (Are we detecting a gay theme here?) Gemini is also one of the more androgynous signs in the zodiac.

In Native American traditions, gay people are sometimes referred to as “two spirited”. Whatever gender we are, we have both male and female characteristics. I think this is true of all people, but we are the ones who embrace this trait. We are not afraid of the other gender within us, but rather enjoy it. We are all Gemini, all twins.

Sagittarius, on the other hand, is about ideas that are codified in some way by the community. They become religions, laws, traditions, teaching tools of some kind. As an air sign, Gemini is dispassionate and playful, checking out many different ideas and viewpoints. As a fire sign, Sagittarius is a fierce advocate for some specific set of principles.

At the point when an idea becomes a law, it lights fires everywhere. People’s ideas are either vindicated or refuted. Sagittarius is the sign of the fanatic, and also of the fighter for freedom, honor and individual rights. With the generational sign Pluto moving through Sagittarius, we are in the middle of an epoch of religious wars and fiery beliefs. The children born at this time (from 1995 to 2008) will have this as their generational mission: they will need to be inspired, to find a philosophy or religion that explains the world to them.

And what about the two-spirited people? And what about the Gemini folks? There’s already a division within the gay community around all this emphasis on marriage. Many lesbians have told me that marriage is not their agenda, and that they don't want to assimilate. This is a very Geminian approach: the need to keep one’s options open. And so even when legislation is gay-positive, there is a certain tension in our community, a crystallization of the Gemini/Sagittarius themes.

Venus, the planet of love, won’t move much during May, but will stay within a five degree range in Gemini. On the 17th, it goes retrograde. All this Gemini energy will give more curiosity, more mental flexibility. We will all be lighter, cooler, maybe more ambidextrous. Our jokes will be funnier. Of course, this will depend a lot on whether you have any airy energy in your chart. If not, you might be driven crazy by everyone else’s more casual and chatty approach to life.

When Venus goes retrograde - something that happens about every two years, for six weeks at a time - there’s a certain stasis in relationships. Whatever patterns you’ve set up will effortlessly continue. If you’re in a settled monogamous relationship, you’ll stay that way. If you’re sleeping with three different people, you’ll probably keep on with that. If you’re putting ads in the personals, you’ll probably get lots of responses but not necessarily any hits.

This retrograde period gives us all a chance to really look at our relationship patterns - especially since Venus will be opposing Pluto in Sagittarius the whole month. Any aspect from Pluto makes for deeper awareness. We’ll look at the doors left open, as well as the commitments we’ve made. We’ll look at what we’re still thinking about, and what we’ve come to believe. We’ll look at our relationship to the community - the lesbian community, as well as the wider community. And we'll talk about everything.

During May, I’ll be getting on a plane and flying to Virginia. All over the state, there will be fires, fires of passion, as gay people and anti-gay people battle over these basic philosophical questions. Who are we to each other? And having made our personal choices, who are we in our communities?

Basically, it’s all about love. But I’m not sure that’s what I’ll be feeling, as I drive down the highways of Virginia.

Index of Jenny Yates' Writings on Lesbian.com