Pride Tarot Cards

Shortly after 2019 Pride Month, honoring the Stonewall Uprising, Chairman Stuart Kaplan called the creative team at U.S. Games Systems in for a meeting. Pride events and personal experiences with LGBTQ+ causes inspired them to become more proactively involved in supporting the LGBTQ+ community.

A brainstorming session led to two exciting goals for the company. First, as a publisher they decided we wanted to give LGBTQ+ tarot artists and allies a voice and a creative forum. They all concurred that a collaborative Pride Tarot deck would be the ideal way for U.S. Games Systems to support the Pride movement. They knew this deck should  be positive, welcoming and a celebration of the diversity in the LGBTQ+ community.

Secondly, they committed to making a sizable financial contribution to an organization working to improve the lives of LGBTQ+ individuals. Since it is all too often young people who most acutely experience isolation and marginalization, they chose to donate to a group whose mission is to help struggling young people. U.S. Games has since donated $10,150 to The Trevor Project, the world's largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ young people. To learn more, visit www.TheTrevorProject.org. $150 of this amount came from one of the Pride Tarot artists, Gabi West, who wanted to donate her artist's fee to The Trevor Project.

To create Pride Tarot, they reached out to U.S. Games Systems artists, some of who identify as LGBTQ+, while most of the others have close family and friends who are members of the community. They also invited other LGBTQ+ tarot artists to contribute artwork (some new, some from existing tarot decks) for the Pride Tarot deck. The response from all the tarot artists contacted was unanimous and overwhelmingly enthusiastic. Contributors were particularly pleased to work with U.S. Games Systems, knowing that they have supported The Trevor Project.

The result is a tarot deck reflecting amazing unity as well as diversity. They have 45 different artists’ work collected from all areas of the LGBTQ+ community and from around the globe, including Russia, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, the UK, Australia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Japan, Columbia, Guatemala, Canada, the United States, Scotland and Mexico. Many of these artists are activists for LGBTQ+ rights. All of them have poignant and powerful stories to tell. We are grateful  to every one of these artists for sharing their vision and their inspiration!