Trans Weave Artist Challenges Gender Norms in Mexico

In San Pedro Jicayán, an Indigenous community in southern Mexico, Xaneri Merino grew up defying rigid gender norms that barred men from weaving, a traditional craft reserved for women. Identified at birth as male, Merino, now a transgender woman and muxe in Zapotec culture, secretly learned the backstrap loom from her grandmother starting at age 13, turning an expected life of tending cattle into one of cultural preservation and personal resistance.

Merino's maternal roots trace to the Mixtec people, whose origin stories link gods and dynasties to sacred landscapes, while her paternal Zapotec heritage integrates religious practices into daily life, from harvests to rituals. Her grandmother taught her to create threads from natural fibers, respect textures, and repay the land for its resources, such as using tamarind branches for loom rods and restoring what is taken. "To care for nature is part of our worldview," Merino said, "because it provides us with what we need to walk this world."

The backstrap loom, an ancient portable device, requires weavers to secure one end to a fixed point and the other around their waist, using body movements to control thread tension in a rhythmic...