Rachel Pollack

Rachel Grace Pollack (August 17, 1945 – April 7, 2023) was an American science fiction author, comic book writer, and expert on divinatory tarot. Pollack was born on August 17, 1945, in Brooklyn, New York to an Orthodox Jewish family. At age 15, she was diagnosed with cancer, which was later found out to be calcium deposits, with her seeing it as a miracle influenced by her parents' prayers. She earned an honours degree in English from New York University and a master's in English from Claremont Graduate University. After getting her master's, Pollack secured a teaching job at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh and married a woman named Edith Katz (the marriage ended by the 1990s ). 1971 was a pivotal year for Pollack, who in the same year sold her first short story ("Pandora's Box"), discovered Tarot and came out as a trans woman. After Rachel's coming out, the couple moved to London, where they became active in radical lesbian feminist scene. They also were active in the UK Gay Liberation Front, who in 1972 published the trans manifesto titled “Don’t Call Me Mister You Fucking Beast,” written by Pollack, Roz Kaveney and others. In the same year Rachel and Edith experienced "sudden" rejection from their lesbian feminist peers, whose “political ideology had shifted” to a transphobic one, causing the couple to move to Amsterdam. Pollack's later work on spirituality continued to be influenced by women’s spirituality movement and second-wave feminism.