Crafting a Community of Intersecting Identities

Editor’s Note: As part of our recognition of June as Pride month, we asked Ladianne Henderson of Hand Dyed Diva to share her perspective as a member of both the LGBTQ+ community and the fiber and crafting community on the many intersecting identities each of us inhabits. We hope you find her essay as thought-provoking as we did.

We value all crafters and we strive to be an ally to the LGBTQ+ community. Love is love, and we’re sending our love and support to those who are out, those who are unable to come out, and those who are still learning about or are unsure of their identity or sexuality.

I am not A Gay Knitter. Or A Lesbian Knitter. Or even solely a knitter at all. I am the sum of my experiences, which will never be the same as yours or anyone else’s. Each of us exists along a continuum. If I were to knit up my life, it would probably look something like an infinity scarf that intersects with many other infinity scarves. Stitches picked up here, frogged there. Textures changing along the way, colors shifting and melting into one another. The fiber community is its own kind of infinity-scarf-shaped work-in-progress, with all sorts of complex intersections offering opportunities for shared grappling with the hard stuff of being human.

The bottom line is this: the truth of human experience lies in the shifting and nuanced folds of experience. I’ve always believed that.

More Than Any One Identity

While running errands and listening to NPR in my car, I heard a conversation between interviewer Brittany Luse and Tre’vell Anderson, author of We See Each Other: A Black Trans Journey Through TV and Film. Anderson expressed something I’ve always known. Put simply, viewing ourselves (or anyone else) through a single lens is at best a mistake, and at worst destructive. 

I struggle with the pressure to define myself narrowly as a member of any specific community. While I know that representation matters, I also know our culture demands that we choose a team, purchase the merch, and adopt a “ride or die” mentality. Opportunities to do as Anderson suggests and wrestle with the complexities of our unique lives, and our community, go mostly ignored. My identity and my community extend well beyond the neatly sewn edges of a pride flag. 

Opportunity from Discomfort

Years ago, I made a short film called Those People. It’s a scrappy, artsy little work that still gives me pause. For the film, I interviewed six people whose lives all intersected at the experience of feeling “othered”—having been marginalized for being perceived as one of those people in one way or another. A woman who wore a hijab, an African American lesbian, a little person, a transsexual woman, a body piercer, and a woman with alopecia. I interviewed each of them to learn about times they’d been othered, and about times they may have made other people feel marginalized.

The film was part of an exhibit for a very small museum gallery just outside Charlotte, North Carolina. I’ll never forget the day my mom and I were shopping for hardware to use in hanging part of the exhibit when my phone rang. I froze when I heard the museum director say, “I can’t believe it, Ladianne, but the board isn’t comfortable with this exhibit. They don’t like the fact that there is a transsexual in your film.”

Wait . . . what? I was stunned that this one small aspect of the exhibit would be a stumbling block. “Yes,” I heard myself saying, “I can come speak with the board about the exhibit.”

In my conversation with the board, they came to realize that their reaction to the depiction of a transsexual was worth confronting in the context of this exhibit. My exhibit was mounted, and according to the executive director at the time, the show yielded the highest visitor count of any exhibit the museum had ever had. What could have been an awful situation became a chance at connection, and an opportunity to build understanding. 

Related: Knit the Rainbow: Winter Warmth for LGBTQIA+ Youth

Approach With Open Hearts

I’m a mother, and an artist, and a musician, and a hand-dyer, and a Master Knitter, and an entrepreneur. I’m all those things—and so much more. I am married to an amazing partner in life and business, who is also a woman. Most importantly, I’m a human being. I’m part of many communities full of other human beings, including the yarn and fiber community. 

It’s easy and convenient to label people at first glance. But those labels can be limiting when they boil down to “like me” and “not like me”. When we approach each other with open hearts, from a place of love—when we give each person the same thoughtful care and consideration we give our crafts—we create beautiful, billowing, safe spaces of possibility.

But, perhaps more importantly, when we offer our help when stitches are dropped, or when a spindle hits the floor, we put that consideration into action. Those small moments of connection, like each stitch we make, work to mend what needs repair in ourselves and in our communities. 

Related: Community Crafting Projects Changing the World

Resources to Support LGBTQ+ Knitters

Work toward equity for LGBTQ+ members of our crafting community with these organizations:

• Knit the Rainbow
• Free Mom Hugs
• Human Rights Campaign
• GLSEN

Ladianne Henderson is an artist, writer, and avid yarn and fiber whis­perer. She co-owns Hand Dyed Diva, an independent dyer of yarn and fiber, with her wife Sheri. Ladianne has a Master of Fine Arts degree in Interdisciplinary Arts, a Master Hand Knitter certification, and was honored to be inducted as a Tory Burch Fellow in 2022. Find her hand-dyed yarns at www.handdyeddiva.com.

More from Ladianne: Appreciation of Craft as Fine Art

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