Hex the Binary, Bless the Queer

When you hear the word witch what image comes to mind? Maybe it's the silhouette of an old woman hunched over a cauldron, framed by firelight and folklore. Maybe she wears a crooked hat or whispers curses in a forgotten tongue. Maybe, like so many of us raised on fairy tales and Halloween costumes, you see something dark, a little dangerous, a little ridiculous. But the truth of witchcraft, and the people who’ve practiced it, has always been more complex, and far more inclusive than the stereotype suggests.

I know this not just from history books, but from my own family. I come from a long line of witches. On my mother’s side Jewish women who practiced a blend of ancestral folk magic, mysticism, and healing. On my father’s, gypsy and Polish witches: women and men who carried knowledge of herbs, divination, and spirit-work across generations, often in secret. Some might call me a blood witch, someone who inherits their craft not just through learning, but through lineage. Both sides of my family practiced some forms of shamanism, witchcraft, and energy work - not to harm, but to help. To ease pain, protect loved ones, and restore balance where the world had broken it. All merged in coexisting and within a surprisingly inclusive early 20th century Poland.

Witchcraft has always been about connection. Connection to land, to ancestors, to unseen forces, and to each other. It’s not just spells and symbols but it’s a way of living, of all seeing, of refusing to forget what we know deep down - that there is power in caring, power in resistance, and power in naming what others try to erase.

Today, witchcraft is undergoing a vibrant resurgence. From TikTok covens to traditional Wiccan circles, from herbalists to queer urban mystics, more and more people are turning to magic, not just as spiritual practice, but as reclamation, refuge, and revolt. For trans and gender-diverse individuals in particular, witchcraft offers a place to be whole: to heal, to rage, to create, and to belong.

This is the story of witchcraft as it truly is: global, gender-inclusive, and defiantly alive.

What Gender Is a Witch?

The short answer? Any. The long answer is a rich tapestry that weaves through centuries of myth, magic, and defiance.

In the English-speaking world, witch is often gendered female, thanks in large part to fairy tales, pop culture, and the historical targeting of women during witch trials. But look closer, and you’ll find that the witch, as an archetype and as a role, has never belonged to just one gender. Across cultures and continents, witches have been men, women, nonbinary people, and very often gender fluid folks.

Throughout history, witches were the ones who lived slightly off-centre from the rest of the village. They might have been midwives, herbalists, or spiritual leaders. They were often the people you went to when nothing else worked, when the doctor gave up, when the priest said “pray harder.” They might live alone, or love differently, or walk with spirits the rest of the world refused to see. And that difference made them dangerous, to patriarchy, to colonialism, to organized religion, and to any system that feared self-sufficiency, intuition, and unregulated power.

Many of the same systems that persecuted witches also criminalized queerness and gender nonconformity. In fact, these lines were often blurred. People who didn't conform to expected gender roles like unmarried women, effeminate men, or gender-diverse individuals were more likely to be accused of witchcraft. Not necessarily because they were magical, but because they were inconvenient.

And yet, in many cultures, gender variance within magical traditions wasn’t just tolerated but honoured. The archetypal witch was liminal by nature - someone who stood between the mundane and the mystical, the seen and unseen, the man-made and the wild. Why shouldn’t they also stand between genders?

Modern witchcraft reflects this. You’ll find folks of every gender identity calling themselves witches and being embraced as such. To be a witch isn’t about conforming to a role - it’s about rewriting the rules or throwing them out entirely.

The Witch Trials and Essex’s Dark Legacy

Witchcraft has always unsettled those in power. It represents autonomy, mystery, and a threat to order especially when embodied by those already marginalized. Nowhere is this more chillingly evident than in the brutal witch hunts of early modern England. And while Salem often dominates popular imagination, the roots of witches persecution run far deeper and across the Atlantic. In fact, one of the most infamous epicentres of witch hysteria was a quiet English county: Essex.

Between the 16th and 17th centuries, Essex became a hotbed of witch trials. Its dense population, strong Puritan presence, and tensions fuelled by poverty, war, and disease, created the perfect storm for suspicion to spiral into violence. By the time witchcraft trials peaked in England, Essex accounted for more accusations and executions than any other county. Entire communities were upended by whispers, superstitions, and the growing authority of so-called witchfinders.

Perhaps the most notorious figure of this era was Matthew Hopkins, self-styled Witchfinder General.  His brutal reign began in the early 1640s, and nowhere was it more felt than in the small town of Manningtree. Hopkins, barely in his twenties, used religious paranoia and local gossip to identify, and torment, those he accused. Many were elderly, poor, or simply strange. He would search their bodies for witch’s marks - often using cruel and humiliating tactics, and relying on sleep deprivation or torture to extract confessions.

It’s in this bleak chapter of English history that A.K. Blakemore sets her visceral and lyrical novel, The Manningtree Witches (2021). The book follows Rebecca West, a young woman caught in the rising tide of Puritan fanaticism and male control. Through her voice, we witness how women’s independence, however slight, was twisted into suspicion, and how quickly a village could turn into a crucible.

“There are no miracles here, only mischief and the mournful mechanics of hunger”, The Manningtree Witches, A.K. Blakemore.

Blakemore’s prose evokes not just historical fact, but a sensory and emotional truth. The novel doesn’t mythologize witches it humanizes them. These women weren’t flying broomsticks or cursing crops; they were surviving as best they could in a world determined to break them. And often, they were punished not for practicing magic, but for being inconvenient - or being poor, old, unmarried, mouthy, queer, strange, or too knowledgeable about herbs and birth.

What’s most telling about the witch trials of Essex is how little they had to do with witchcraft itself. They were about power, who held it, who feared losing it, and who was punished for not conforming. The accused were overwhelmingly women, but not exclusively. Anyone who stepped outside gender or social norms risked being labelled a threat. In this sense, the witch trials weren’t just acts of misogyny, they were deeply entangled with early policing of gender and non-conformity.

People are now moving to Essex, drawn not just by the coast or countryside, but by something deeper, more ancestral. A spiritual pull. A strange, magnetic synchronicity. In recent years, many have discovered the region’s witchy legacy and felt a call not of fear, but of recognition. Essex is no longer just a place of persecution; but is becoming a site of revival and reconnection.

For me, moving to Essex was more than a change of address, it was a return. A step onto soil where witch blood was spilled and now, once again, flows in celebration. Here, I’ve found not only my history, but my community. One of queer witches, healers, artists, and spirit-workers who are reclaiming the land and its stories. We don’t hide in shadows.

The very land that once condemned witches now sings with their memory. And I’ve found my voice among them.

Witch, Warlock, Wizard: What’s in a Name?

Language is spell work. The words we use for magic, and for the people who wield it, carry centuries of history, fear, fantasy, and power. But they also reveal a lot about who’s been allowed to hold that power, and who hasn’t.

So let’s break down the trio of familiar magical labels: witch, warlock, and wizard. They’re often used interchangeably, especially in pop culture, but their histories tell very different stories.

Witch: The Outcast and the Icon

The word witch likely comes from Old English wicce (feminine) and wicca (masculine), both meaning a practitioner of magic. But over time, wicce became dominant and deeply gendered. As patriarchal Christian structures took hold in Europe, witch became synonymous with evil, womanhood, and heresy. It was the name given to midwives, herbalists, widows, and ‘difficult’ women. A curse disguised as a title.

And yet, despite, or because of that stigma, witch has become the most widely reclaimed and re-empowered magical term today. It no longer belongs to fear-mongers or fairy tales. It belongs to anyone who dares to see the sacred in themselves and the world around them.

Witch, now, means healer. Seer. Spellcaster. Rebel. It belongs to women, men, nonbinary people. It belongs to you, if you want it to.

Warlock: The Betrayer and the Reclaimed

If witch has been historically feminized, warlock is often assumed to be the masculine version. But dig into its roots and the story shifts.

Warlock comes from the Old English wǣrloga, literally meaning ‘oathbreaker’. It was never meant as a neutral descriptor. In fact, it was used in religious contexts to describe traitors, especially those who renounced Christian baptism or were seen as agents of the Devil. During the witch trials, calling someone a warlock wasn’t just naming them, it was condemning them.

Some modern male practitioners have tried to reclaim warlock as a badge of magical masculinity. Others reject it entirely, preferring to be called witches, mages, or simply ‘practitioners’. For many, the term still holds echoes of betrayal and mistrust.

And here's the twist - plenty of self-identified witches are men. Just as plenty are queer, trans, or genderfluid. Witch is increasingly used as a gender-neutral term. It’s not who you are, it’s what you do, and how you move through the world.

Wizard: The Wise Man

Wizard brings to mind pointy hats, long beards, and flowing robes a staple of high fantasy and kids’ books. The term itself comes from Middle English wysard, meaning ‘wise one’ and originally referred to learned men especially those with knowledge of astrology, alchemy, or esoteric philosophy.

Unlike witch or warlock, the label wizard was historically associated with respect, mystery, and male genius. Wizards were advisors to kings, masters of hidden knowledge, and bearers of ancient wisdom. Notice the pattern? Magic performed by men was often framed as noble, intellectual, even scientific. Magic performed by women? Dangerous, emotional, diabolical.

Sound familiar?

Of course, this division doesn’t hold up in real-world practice. But it does reveal how patriarchy shaped magical archetypes: giving men status and power, while women and queer people were viewed with suspicion.

Magic Beyond Labels

In truth, most contemporary magical practitioners choose their titles carefully, and often creatively. Some prefer witch for its defiant history. Others go by mage, sorcerer, priestess, folk healer, seer, or hedge witch. Some invent their own words altogether. Because for many of us, magic is not about fitting into a label, it’s about breaking free of the ones we were never meant to wear.

For me, witch resonates because of where I come from, because of the bloodline, the memory, the feeling of standing between worlds. It’s a word with thorns, yes, but also roots. And reclaiming it feels like both resistance and remembrance.

Because whether you cast spells under the moon or just hold space for others to heal, you’re doing the work. And in the end, that’s the only real magic that matters.

Slavic Witchcraft: Folklore, Healing, and Shadow

When we travel East, into the thick birch forests, misty mountains, and haunted borderlands of Slavic Europe where I was born witchcraft has always been part of the cultural fabric, rooted in the land, in stories, and in survival.

Slavic witches come in many forms. Here are just a few:

Szeptuchas: Whispering Healers of Poland and Ukraine

Szeptuchas (from the Polish word szeptać, “to whisper”) are folk healers found mostly in the Podlasie region of eastern Poland. They blend Christian prayers with pagan rituals, herbal remedies, and whispered spells to heal ailments of the body and spirit.

Despite their deep spiritual authority, szeptuchas operate in secrecy, partly due to Catholic conservatism, partly because of centuries of state repression. Many are elderly women, and their knowledge is often passed down orally, from mentor to apprentice.

Queer and trans folks in Eastern Europe are increasingly connecting with szeptucha traditions reclaiming ancestral magic, queering its practice, and adapting it to modern spiritual needs. It's a quiet revolution of healing and remembering.

Baba Jaga: The Bone-Legged Crone and Her Chicken-Leg Hut

No dive into Slavic witchcraft is complete without Baba Jaga one of the most enigmatic and complex witch figures in world folklore.

She’s a terrifying old woman who lives deep in the forest, in a hut that stands on chicken legs. She’s sometimes helpful, sometimes deadly. She might eat you or gift you magical tools if you pass her test. She’s a symbol of initiation, chaos, and boundary-crossing.

Some scholars see Baba Jaga as a remnant of a Slavic death goddess or a forest spirit. Others view her as a metaphor for feminine power that doesn’t cater to men: wild, untamed, and deeply respected. For many modern witches, she’s a guide one who teaches us to face fear, own our shadows, and trust the path. Her depiction has such a strong example of how much misogyny is behind so many images of witches in folk tales… old unattractive women, isolated and to be feared of.

Under Soviet and communist regimes, open magical practice was dangerous. But folk traditions survived underground, disguised as superstition, hidden in lullabies, in herbal teas, in old wives’ tales.

Today, queer and trans witches across Eastern Europe are reawakening these traditions. Through online covens, zines, workshops, and ancestral research, they are rewriting the spellbook. One that centres liberation, queer joy, and spiritual sovereignty.

Modern Witchcraft as Resistance: Magic for All Genders

In a world that still tries to police bodies, erase queerness, and punish difference, being a witch is an act of resistance.

To light a candle and speak your truth is resistance.

To cast a spell for justice is resistance.

To honour your body, your ancestors, your intuition especially when the world tells you not to is resistance.

For many queer and trans people, witchcraft isn’t just spiritual it is a survival.

It’s a way of carving out sacred space in a world that often denies our existence. A way of rewriting the script we were handed. A way of naming ourselves with power.

Modern witchcraft rejects the old binaries. We don’t believe power belongs only to cis men in robes, or to white women with cauldrons. We believe magic lives in all bodies and that every person, regardless of gender, has the right to access the sacred.

More and more, covens and spiritual spaces are explicitly trans-affirming, nonbinary-inclusive, and built around radical compassion. Rituals are being rewritten to honour queer family, chosen ancestors, and non-linear stories. Gendered archetypes (like maiden, mother, crone) are being expanded to reflect real lives: the shapeshifter, the phoenix, the sacred fool, the parent without a label.

Spells are becoming tools not just for love and luck but for gender euphoria, visibility, protection, and joy.

Magic as Protest

Witchcraft has always been political. From enslaved Africans using hoodoo for protection, to enslaved Europeans sneaking herbal knowledge across borders, to Indigenous Two-Spirit medicine people resisting colonial erasure magic has been a weapon, a shield, and a compass.

Today’s witches organize healing circles for trans youth, create tarot spreads and lead rituals at protests and Pride events.

This is not metaphor. This is real, living magic. It’s alive in group chats, bookshops and Instagram reels.

Witchcraft today is not about hierarchy it’s about mutual care, self-determination, and radical love.

Trans Witches, Future Witches

Trans witches are not just included in this movement they are leading it. Many are reclaiming Indigenous practices where gender fluidity was always sacred. Others are remixing traditions to honour their unique experience of embodiment and becoming.

To be trans is to know alchemy intimately - to change form, to survive transformation, to move through liminality - that’s magic.

To be nonbinary is to live in the mystery, the space between and beyond - that’s also magic.

Witchcraft gives us the language, and the power, to hold our truth in the palm of our hand, to cast it into the world like a spell.

Closing the Circle

Being a witch, for me, means living in devotion. Not to a dogma, but to a deep, ancient call:To listen. To remember. To heal. To resist.

It means walking in the footsteps of my ancestors. It means whispering thanks to the szeptuchas and the midwives burned at the stake. It means honouring every trans, queer, and gender-expansive witch who stands today, whole and holy, in the face of fear.

It means choosing wonder. Choosing rebellion. Choosing magic.

Because in a world that tells you who you’re allowed to be, claiming your own story, your own spell, is the most radical act of all.

Witchcraft isn’t just old it’s ancient and evolving. It’s queer. It’s trans. It’s yours.

Being a witch isn’t about wearing black or casting hexes - though those are fun too.It’s about living fiercely, loving freely, and refusing to shrink.

So light your candles, charge your crystals, honour your ancestors and remember:

The future is fluid. The witches are many.

Broomsticks are after all genderless.

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