How to Knit a Trans-Solidarity Scarf

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Robbie Gamble

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I’m a guy who likes to knit.

I have a trans daughter, who I love dearly.

I started knitting way back in college, to have something creative to occupy my hands, and I’ve enjoyed knitting sweaters and mittens for friends and loved ones ever since.

I’ve decided I want to knit a particular scarf I can wear myself, as a sign of solidarity with my daughter and all transgender people.

She is a fiercely compassionate, courageous person, and I fear for her future.

As an older, straight, white cis-male, the least I could do is wear some visible means of support for beautiful people who are increasingly under attack.

Here follows my plan for the scarf; it’s an extremely simple knitting project, and even if you have never knit anything before, you should be able to follow these instructions, and knit one yourself, if you like.

For this piece, you will need a 36-inch-long #8 circular needle, scissors, and three 100-gram balls of worsted weight yarn, one each in light blue, pink, and white.

You can order these things online, but it’s better to go to a retail yarn store, where you can support a local business and get help in finding what you need.

If you’re an older cishet-male like me, you may find that there is no one in the store that looks like you do.

If you find this mildly discomforting, it’s helpful to remember that transgender people experience this kind of otherness all day long as they move through public spaces.

Anyways, yarn store proprietors are some of the nicest people in the world, and they are more than happy to help you with your needs.

My design for the scarf is based on the transgender flag, a five-stripe banner designed by American trans woman Monica Helm, and it was first displayed at a pride parade in Phoenix, Arizona in 2000.

This is how she described the meaning of the flag: “The stripes at the top and bottom are light blue, the traditional color for baby boys. The stripes next to them are pink, the traditional color for baby girls. The stripe down the middle is white, for those who are intersex, transitioning, or consider themselves having a neutral or undefined gender.”

My design will take the stripes of the flag and stretch them out to the length of a scarf.

In order to make the scarf, you only have to acquire three skills: how to cast on, how to knit, and how to cast off.

If you’re new to knitting, you can ask a knitter friend or relative to show you how to do these things, or you can go back to the yarn store, where they often have beginner knitting classes.

When you’ve assembled your skills and materials, begin by casting on 144 stitches of the light blue yarn.

I chose to make the scarf 144 stitches long, because it’s a decent length for a dressy scarf, and it’s also the number of anti-trans bills introduced into state legislatures in 2021, the year the anti-trans backlash really took off.

When you’ve cast on all of the stitches, take the scissors and cut off the end of the yarn, leaving about a 6-inch tail.

Turn your needles around, and leaving a 6-inch tail at the beginning of the row, knit all the cast-on stitches, cutting the yarn off at the end for another 6-inch tail.

If you’re wondering about the tails, they will become tassels on the finished scarf.

Turn the needles again and knit another row as you did before, and then continue knitting rows with tails until you have twelve rows of light blue.

Switch to the pink yarn, and knit twelve rows in that color.

As I get into the rhythm of a knitting project, the repetition of motion becomes a kind of meditation, and I find myself thinking deeply about the person I am knitting this piece for, twining their presence into the garment evolving in my hands.

Switch colors again, continuing to make a 12-row band of white, then another 12-row band of pink, then a final band of light blue.

Gently cast off the twelfth and final row of light blue, and your scarf will fall into your lap.

Now to make the tassels: starting with one end of the scarf, tie every six or seven tails together with a simple overhand knot, pushing the knots as close to the knitted stitches as possible.

Repeat tying off the tassels on the scarf’s other end, and then trim all the tassel ends evenly to the length you desire.

Now you have a scarf you can wear to publicly express your solidarity with the transgender people you love and care about.

I like to think about the knitting process, how the act of knitting a single stitch is such a small thing, but then you keep at it until you have a row, and then a series of rows that become a garment: strong yet soft and flexible, capable of warding off a blustery chill.

The same is true of building community: one person or one act of resistance doesn’t seem to amount to much, but string them together into a community, and then a broad coalition of communities, and you have built a movement that can resist grave forces of injustice.

And even the process of writing an essay: finding words and building sentences that develop into ideas we can wrap ourselves in for warmth and inspiration and protection on the journey.

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Robbie Gamble (he/him) is the author of A Can of Pinto Beans (Lily Poetry Review Press, 2022). His poems and essays have appeared in Consequence, Salamander, Tahoma Literary Review, and The Sun. He divides his time between Boston and Vermont.

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