Mexico Indigenous Weaving

Xaneri Merino, a transgender woman and artisan from southern Mexico, was once punished for weaving in her Indigenous community, where men are largely barred from weaving. Today, she uses the backstrap loom to explore identity and resilience while teaching others to turn weaving into a form of personal expression and LGBTQ+ resistance. Merino was expected to tend cattle or work in the fields. Yet her grandmother defied those rigid gender norms, passing on to her the ancestral practice of the backstrap loom — an ancient, portable device operated using a strap secured around the weaver’s waist.