For Kelly Hensley — known by the moniker “Kelly the Barber” to many in the South Bay’s queer community — there has been something missing at every salon or barber shop for which he’s worked.
When he went out on his own six years ago, he was finally able to identify it: a safe space for his clients, many of whom had been misgendered by other stylists. Hensley, who came out as transgender in 2020, has built his business on providing gender-affirming haircuts, along with a dose of empathy, comfort and kindness.
After two years of cutting hair in his home, Hensley finally opened his own place, Pork Chop’s House of Reframe, in May. Located in downtown San Jose’s SoFA district, he wants the barber shop to offer more than just haircuts — he wants it also to be a space for the LGBTQ+ community to connect and access resources.
Kelly Hensley, the owner of Pork Chop’s House of Reframe and a barber, at his barbershop and salon in downtown San Jose on Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)
With Pride Month in full swing, this news organization recently interview Hensley to learn more about his plans and how his own personal journey has inspired his work. This interview has been edited for clarity and lenght.
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Q: How did you get into cutting hair?
A: My very first hair cut that I can remember is shaving my best friend’s hair growing up and not telling his mom and getting in trouble for it. But I fell in love with the act of hair cutting. I became a cosmetologist before I was a barber, and that was in my late 20s only after I had a short stint as a wilderness guide in my early 20s.
I started my career doing primarily long hair in San Francisco, although I wanted to learn how to do hair for everyone. I stopped doing hair color to focus on hair cutting because I think of it as sculpting and I’m a very tactile person and I like to consider myself an artist.
Honestly I love what I do. I do a barbering service, so it’s not a full styling process, not an extensive blow dry or shampoo, and I don’t have to sell product because I don’t necessarily believe that there is any one right product to use. Our ancestors who came before us didn’t use L’Oréal products and they survived just fine. I give suggestions, of course, and eventually I might carry some product in my shop, but it’s hard for me to subscribe to any one right way for the variables that is human hair and styling.
Barber tools at Kelly Hensley’s booth at Pork Chop’s House of Reframe Barbershop and Salon on Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)
Q: How did you settle on the name Pork Chop’s House of Reframe?
A: When I was a kid growing up I used to play tackle football and I was very tomboyish. The kids in the neighborhood gave me the unfortunate nickname of pork chop, and I hated it because they were making fun of my weight. Going through a gazillion years of my own personal therapy and my own experience, I’m starting to understand the importance of reframing things. Similarly how the word “queer” was once meant for harm for the LGBTQ+ community, now we embrace it and use it as an empowering statement.
Pork Chop’s House of Reframe in my opinion just represents resilience and flipping someone’s shame into more of a strength. It’s what we do there, especially working with the trans community and gender-curious people wanting to get a drastically different haircut than they have ever had before — maybe a haircut that other people in their life don’t want them to have. The reframe is: what if the haircut you want for yourself is good? What if it’s actually an affirming thing?
Q: What is a “gender-affirming haircut?”
A: A gender-affirming service is to hear someone say “I want to have a haircut that usually men have, but I wasn’t born a man,” and then we say “Yep, I got you” instead of saying “oh no, I don’t know if that will look good.” To affirm is just to give a person what they’re wanting, asking questions to get you there but not asking questions about the why, because that in the long run is not important. What is important is how do I refer to them and what do they hope with their haircut?
Every single haircut I ask my client, “Is this feeling okay?” Because the first thing you don’t want is an uncomfortable client because they’re being strangled by the smock, and what if they’re not going to say anything? It’s providing a service, making sure they feel comfortable in the chair and also hoping they feel empowered to ask for things that they want, especially if it involves going shorter with their haircut.
Badges and pins on owner Kelly Hensley’s apron at Pork Chop’s House of Reframe Barbershop and Salon on Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)
Q: What is your vision for Pork Chop’s House of Reframe beyond just offering haircuts?
A: I hope to continue to stay in the community-building aspect of things. I hope to use the shop for after-hours peer-led support groups — especially in the LGBTQ+ community connecting parents with other parents, educators with other educators, trans people with other trans people, just to have that community support. Individually, I’m talking about the desire to connect with other people and if I have the place for it then why not help people connect and build community? I want to also help connect people with resources that might help them in supportive ways in their lives as a queer person.
Q: How has your own journey inspired Pork Chop’s House of Reframe?
A: I came out as trans in 2020; I grew up Evangelical Christian, and my family didn’t take it very well at all. They asked me not to come around for the holidays, and that was the first time in my adult life I really experienced a major rejection. At the time I also had a marriage dissolve and it was really hard to feel like I was staying afloat either emotionally or mentally or even communally, because I was so involved and invested in my previous relationship. Then all of a sudden, I felt like I didn’t have anyone.
I’ve chosen throughout all of this to keep on working, because of course it’s what pays the bills, but also I’ve learned that this is actually the roots that I’ve craved in my life — especially now that I’m 41. I’ve hoped for community, I’ve hoped for roots and now that I’ve been cutting hair in the South Bay since 2017, that the thing that I’ve hoped for is actually blossoming, I get to have the best “family” that I’ve never had. It’s a warm, comforting family that is hopefully non-judgmental but also silly and grounded and lively and warm — affirming, if you will. So many of us queer people are left floating out in the universe and I hope to use my experience of feeling that way and use my empathy to provide some kind of direction or anchor or feeling affirmed no matter what, even if it’s a high five.
KELLY HENSLEY PROFILE
Company: Pork Chop’s House of Reframe
Occupation: Barber
Age: 41
Hometown: Half Moon Bay
Current City: San Jose
FIVE FACTS ABOUT KELLY HENSLEY
1) Has a dog named “Norma Grace From Outer Space”
2) Loves to camp, and be outdoors.
3) His favorite activity is swimming.
4) Cycling is his second favorite activity.
5) Kelly cuts many, many mullets in a week.
