The year was 2016. As a friend once said, “[I] busted out the closest!” After cutting my hair, wearing less makeup, and more button up shirts, I wanted to be read as gay immediately.

Due to freedom of expression, more orgasms, and not having to explain racism, Black lesbian spaces seemed like the antidote to the queer spaces run by the shamelessly anti-Black. Over the years, my excitement to be in them shifted as I discovered microcosms no one warned me about.

Before coming out, I only read the horoscope in the TV Guide for fun, so I was unprepared for the zodiac judgement mirroring the worst parts of Abrahamic religions. The obsession with astrology and polyamory is borderline cult-like, and unlike anything I’ve seen. Many social settings have gone left due to unexpected rants about a particular sign. And there are those who believe I’m incomplete as a [redacted] who doesn’t know what time I was born (therefore not knowing my Big Three). One person demanded, “It’s time you found out!”