The Queer Educator Behind Bernie Sanders’ Mittens

Two years ago, Jen Ellis, a teacher from Junction, Vermont, gave Bernie Sanders a pair of mittens that she had handmade out of repurposed wool sweaters and fleece from recycled plastic. She was surprised, however, when he began wearing them on the campaign trail.

During Biden and Harris’ inauguration last week, Sanders was pictured wearing the mittens and the photo quickly went viral. Since then, the half-slumped and less-than-enthused looking Sanders has been photoshopped into everything from The Iron Throne to The Last Supper. While the photo has quickly become one of 2021’s first, viral memes, the real story lies with Ellis and her journey as an educator.

Ellis says she was the last to know that Sanders had worn the mittens, much less that they had gone viral, as she was teaching during the inauguration. “As soon as I walked in the door, my partner said, ‘You’re not going to believe this,'” Ellis told the press.

That’s when she saw the camera zoom in on Sanders, wearing the mittens she had made him. Ellis’ daughter attends the preschool that Sander’s daughter-in-law, Lisa Driscoll, owns and operates. She asked Driscoll to give Sanders the mittens back in 2016 when he lost the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton.

“I was just sad because, even though I like Hillary, I’m so pro-Bernie, and as a public school teacher, I can see every day how families are struggling. People are just trying to make end meet, and they need things like student loan forgiveness and free education and lots of things Bernie is fighting for,” Ellis says. “I sent him these mittens as kind of a shout-out to who he is, and I put a note in that said something to the effect of ‘I hope you run again.'”

Unfortunately, Ellis doesn’t have an Etsy store where one could easily purchase mittens. She was previously completing orders via email, a method which was quickly overrun by thousands of messages requesting orders.

“I think my Gmail has crashed now,” she told Slate.

Since then, she has crafted three pairs of mittens that are currently up for auction. Proceeds from the auction will go to Outright Vermont, an organization that creates queer youth safe spaces, provides queer-focused anti-harassment education for schools and other businesses, and throws large-scale events for queer youth including Camp Outright, a weeklong LGBTQ summer camp.

Ellis reflected on the emotion of watching last week’s inauguration with her partner and 5-year-old daughter:

“It was so powerful to sit with my daughter who I love so much and be like, ‘This is where you enter politics, right? We have shielded you from Trump as much as possible, but this is what we want you to see; a wonderful, successful woman of color in such a powerful position.’ It was great to share that with [my daughter] and my partner, who’s also a woman, so we’re just a huge, feminist household celebrating this momentous occasion.”