Is Your Birth Chart Gay? Clay Aiken Comes Out Of The Closet For His Saturn Return

"I don't think anyone cares. Let's face it: It's 2008. You know. Who cares?"
-Simon Cowell

Singer Clay Aiken (born November 30, 1978, time unknown, Raleigh, NC) is scheduled to publicly announce he is gay in People Magazine tomorrow.

Aiken has already fathered a child via a female friend, Jaymes Foster. That child appears to be a large part of the motivation for Aiken's going public. "I cannot raise a child to lie or to hide things," he says.

(The man has five planets in Sagittarius. What other reason would you expect?)

"Gay" is hard to spot in a birth chart. There's no one clear indicator... which lines up nicely with current theories about sexual orientation being an inherently complex matter. The closest I've ever seen to a "gay signature" in astrology is when there is tension between the rulers of the Fourth and Tenth Houses. Without a proper time of birth on record for Mr. Aiken, it's impossible to tell if he fits this pattern... but given the tight Moon-Saturn square in his birth chart, finding he has Cancer/Capricorn on the MC/IC axis would hardly be a surprise. 

I've yet to see anything definitive involving the Eighth House when it comes to sexual orientation... I strongly suspect the Eighth rules the sex drive, more than it rules what drives you, sexually.

Although I agree that honesty is usually the best policy, I'm concerned about the effect this announcement will have on his career. Normally I'd like to think we're all mature enough now to not be shocked at a celebrity admitting to being gay (thank you again, Ellen DeGeneres), but Clay's transits are worrisome.

First of all, Clay is right at the peak of his Saturn Return. Saturn Returns have a (sometimes unwarranted) reputation for bringing disaster. At the very least, they usually challenge the foundations you've built your life on during the preceding couple of decades or so. Clay's natal Saturn also squares his natal Moon (whose placement we can't be entirely sure of without a time of birth). In addition, transiting Uranus is squaring his natal Sun within less than a degree. That transit alone is bound to have some affect on his general happiness and well-being. It's interesting to think that Clay Aiken may have given this interview, agreed to it, or finally decided to "come out" on the very day of his exact Saturn Return.

Having said that, transiting Jupiter is exactly trining Aiken's natal Saturn, and transiting Neptune is sextiling his natal Mars, so perhaps there is some publicity gold to be mined from all this after all.