“LEFTBIANS: A QUEER-OWNED BUSINESS.”
Tell Us About Your Business:
We are a team of two: Jade and Tab. We met in art school and bonded over our shared love for DIY art, which led us to start Leftbians in 2019. Our passion lies in creating art and accessories that reflect our identities and politics. Our goal is to make unique, queer-made jewellery that truly represents our community. Over the years, we’ve experimented with different techniques to create our products, gaining skills and knowledge along the way. Most recently we’ve launched our new collection of engraved jewellery which we’re very excited about!
find us at www.leftbians.com
our socials are all under @leftbians
What does it mean to you to run a queer-owned business, not just personally, but politically and culturally?
Running a queer-owned business feels especially important during June when we’re reminded of the way that big corporations, even banks, love to co-opt the ‘good cause’ of the ‘LGBT community’ with their own rainbow logo merchandise or empty proclamations of ally-ship.
Another issue we’ve noticed in light of pride month is the increasing amount of art theft, especially from queer artists. Websites like Cherry Kitten launching a pride collection full of stolen pieces (including our own!) Is disheartening. Not to mention so many of these large businesses do not align with ethical values in so many other ways. They are not who we want representing our community.
And especially this year since the supreme courts recent ruling on what “defines a woman” among other slights against the trans community and wider LGBT community. Essentially; we just have to be as visible and loud as actual queer artists and businesses as possible in the face of all this and more.
What have been some of the biggest joys (and biggest challenges) of building your business as a queer person?
Our biggest joy is always interacting with customers and our community either in person at markets or through reviews and messages/ social media. Everyone is so supportive and just gets it. The biggest challenges come in the form of being seen and found by potential customers. When platforms like TikTok will censor words like lesbian, gay and queer, how are we supposed to find our people?
In what ways does your business create space for others in the LGBTQIA+ community-whether through representation, hiring, your offerings, or your ethos?
Our name is Leftbians and our business email is still vegancommunistlesbians@gmail.com from way back when we first started. We’ve never wanted to try to rebrand to be more palatable to a wider customer base because this is just who we are and we are unapologetic. We always share and donate/ donate items to fundraisers for people in our community.
Right now we have stickers and badges available saying ‘dykes for trans rights’, all proceeds going to Good Law Project.
We collab with queer creators sometimes, for example Beth McCarthy has been wearing our stuff on tour which has been cool! And of course we show up to queer markets (shout out to LDN queer mart, especially!) where we get to meet so may people in person. We have a permanent space at Red Brick Market in Birmingham now too, so I like to think it’s a nice surprise for the Birmingham queers when they find us there!
What shifts or changes do you want to see in how queer businesses are supported, funded, or platformed?
I honestly don’t have much hope for a hand up from any large corporations, even Etsy barely platforms us and we’ve been in their top 1 percent of sellers for years. (No shade) Of course we would love to see more programmes and funding opportunities arise for small businesses like us to get equipment or advertising or coaching etc. whether private or government funded, that would be great!
However, we still have to make these spaces ourselves in the meantime both in person (more markets, more shops) and online by expanding our reach.
