KANAN EZRA

KANAN-EZRA, (they/them).
Owner & Stylist of HAIR by Kanan, the House Of Authentic Identity & Reflection

LGBTQ+, Non-binary, Libra, Star Wars fan, Spice Girls fan, drag queen & licensed in Maryland as a cosmetologist, post high school but pre-pandemic. I was employed in a corporate salon but a few years of working in a place I feel like I didn‘t belong, in June 2022, I set out on the scariest journey to be a booth renter, my own business to grow and foster. It’s been beautifully rewarding & now is the time to build the business for clients that need me. I am a gender neutral hairstylist embracing my own non-binary identity. My chair is a safe place for all people, but especially LGBTQ.

I recently got involved with my former vice principal to have discussions on topics close to my heart such as LGBTQ advocacy & gender equality with our schools counseling staffs. My High School years were great, but they could’ve been better. At that time I didn’t know anybody else LGBTQ+. Everything I felt inside ranging from fear to anger to anxiety to shame stayed pretty bottled up inside for a very long time because I really felt so alone.

I refused to come out in high school & waited until I moved out. Long story short, things got worse before they got better. After graduating in 2002 I knew College wasn’t for me. In my 20s, I worked as a bartender when a friend of mine took us to Rehoboth Beach & introduced me to my very first drag show. I wanted in! My love of performing & a dream of always being on a stage married & I entered an amateur contest, thus Phoenix Rising was born. Drag helped me heal from much of the trauma I had lived with for so long that Phoenix allowed me to become a braver version of me & I learned to love myself more. “She” was everything I was told I couldn’t be…beautiful, fabulous, feminine, fierce. Through drag I embraced my own genderfluid & queer identity!

During the pandemic I began to struggle with depression & anxiety which brought up unresolved issues but Instead of fighting them I’m using them to fuel my fire of success. I’m happy seeing these days that young people are just more authentically themselves with less or no shame. Some days I’m jealous or envious of that, but grateful it has changed so much. I would love nothing more than to be able to help someone affirm their identity through trust and respect as a gender inclusive hair stylist & safe space salon environment at HAIR by Kanan.