‘It’s life-giving’: Friar Tuck’s Barbershop provides style, peace and purpose

For many Utahns, getting a haircut can often be insignificant or routine. But for Utahns who are navigating the sometimes-complicated landscape of gender and identity, getting a haircut can be a more weighty prospect — practically and emotionally.

“Your haircut, for queer and trans people, that’s almost as important as gender-affirming surgery or hormones or any other way that you’re living out your transition and identity,” said Patrick Costigan. “That first haircut, for a lot of folks, is life-changing. It’s life-giving.”

Costigan, who works as a campaign manager for the Democratic Party in Utah, is a trans man. He was worried while he was looking for a new barber after moving to Salt Lake City from Chicago, he said, because he wasn’t sure he could replace the experience he’d had at a queer barbershop there. But when he went to Friar Tuck’s Barbershop, per his friends’ recommendations, he said, he was “super impressed.”

Kylee Howell founded Friar Tuck’s Barbershop to offer a safe space for LGBTQ people to have their hair cut after confronting gender and identity issues relating to their hair in their own life. The one-chair shop, which is heavily adorned with pride progress flags and queer literature, is located at 11 W. and 1700 South.

Howell opened the shop after graduating from barber school in their hometown of Price in 2015. They were inspired by a restaurant there that donated a portion of sales to a nonprofit organization and wanted to open a business that could also give back to the community.

Originally, they wanted to name the shop after Robin Hood to fit this theme of giving back to the community. But they instead selected Friar Tuck because of his desire to educate and compassion for the marginalized. (His skills with a sword and unusual haircut made him a particularly good fit to associate with a barbershop, Howell said.)

Cutting hair runs in Howell’s family — their uncle worked as a barber in Price, and their mom owned a beauty salon and worked as a Mary Kay consultant. They grew up around feminine things, they said, but didn’t feel like a “particularly feminine person.”

“It’s interesting because growing up in that small town, I knew there was something up with me — that I was different — but I didn’t have a word for it,” Howell said. “I didn’t hear the world ‘lesbian’ until 1999 or 2000. My sister had a friend who came out as a lesbian and I was like, ‘What’s a lesbian?’ and she was like, ‘I’m girl crazy instead of boy crazy.’ And immediately I was like, ‘Oh, so that’s what I’ve been trying to ignore since second grade.’”

‘There’s just so many layers of being intimidated’

When Howell decided to get their hair cut short for the first time, they headed to a salon. After they expressed slight disappointment with how feminine the cut turned out, the stylist recommended they try a barbershop instead.

“As a queer person, I just could not have super comfortable experiences [at barbershops],” Howell said. “I either had a hard time getting a haircut that I wanted — like people wanted to leave it longer to make it look more feminine. Or I would find the barbershop that would give me the haircut I wanted, but I would kind of just sit there in silence. The barbers weren’t talking to me even though they talked to other clients, so it felt like it wasn’t my space to be in.”

Some barbershops barred women from service altogether, Howell said.

Howell began to hear about similar experiences from their LGBTQ friends. “If they were trans, for example, they were not comfortable talking about hormones and beyond that, they were praying that wouldn’t be outed in that type of atmosphere,” Howell said.

“I’ve talked to a lot of gay men that talk about code-switching at the barbershop and trying to come off as straight. I talk to a lot of queer women that say going to the barbershop is uncomfortable because they’re getting hit on the whole time and questioned about their sexuality. They just want the haircut that they want.”

Howell decided that they wanted to open a barbershop that would cater to LGBTQ people and started barber school in Price in 2014.

“I went to a very traditional, like, old boy’s club barber school, which was great because I learned a lot of foundational barber things…” Howell said. “Being a part of that club, there was a lot of gendering about techniques and stuff. ... It’s a very gendered industry.”

Howell recalls an instructor who specifically told the class to only give men squared off haircuts and women more rounded ones. They continue to use that training now, though not as originally intended by their instructor.

“Employing that knowledge, I take the gender out of it,” Howell said. “When somebody comes in and says, ‘Hey, I want a haircut that more masculinizes my face.’ Taking what I learned in barber school, I can use angles and square shapes to masculinize a haircut that lends itself to folks that are just trying to figure things out.”

That traditional barber education also helped them learn how to cut facial hair. Howell had been shaving their own face for a while, but did so in the same manner that they shaved their legs. After picking up more specific instructions for managing facial hair, now Howell can answer questions for clients who are learning to shave their faces as well.

“As I had more and more transmasculine clients who were on testosterone and their facial [hair] was coming in, I realized they had no idea how to deal with it,” Howell said. “It can be intimidating to just Google it because there’s a lot of fetishization… You don’t really want to ask friends because you don’t want to out yourself. There’s just so many layers of being intimidated in finding that information that it becomes a dreadful thing whereas it should be a celebration.”

Recently, Howell had a customer come in who had recently transitioned. The client told Howell that she had been waiting for her cisgender female friends to teach her how to properly apply makeup. She tried to search for YouTube tutorials but was overwhelmed by the amount of information. Howell used the knowledge they picked up from their mother’s beauty salon and taught her how to do it free of charge.

‘Fighting for visibility and building relationships’

These types of interactions have created a sense of community at Friar Tuck’s, and Howell said they’re proud of the safe space they’ve created for LGBTQ people.

“Working in politics in Utah, for some folks who are queer, we have to keep a low profile…” Costigan said. “Friar Tuck’s has been a space where I can come and commiserate and vent about things and feel comfortable talking about my identity and sexual orientation… Those feelings are shared by every single person I know who goes to Friar Tuck’s.”

Costigan said that aren’t many spaces that promote discussion of queer issues like Friar Tuck’s in Utah.

“The queer community here in Utah is burdened by a lot of things that are fundamentally different from my experience in the Midwest,” Costigan said. “There’s a lot of people who can’t just go to a Great Clips in Draper… They feel like if they go and ask for a haircut that reflects their identity, they’re not going to be able to get that experience.”

Costigan said that Howell’s genderless approach offers peace of mind for trans and nonconforming people because it acknowledges that a haircut is not a gendered experience.

“Walking into spaces that force you to pick a gender, even if it’s inadvertent, can throw you into a tailspin,” Costigan added. He’s personally seen how Friar Tuck’s can transform the way people think about queer issues, he said, because of Howell’s activism.

Costigan worked as the campaign manager for Mayor Erin Mendenhall in 2019. Howell was serving as vice chair of the Utah LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce at that time, and Costigan suggested that Mendenhall have a roundtable at Friar Tuck’s with members of the community.

“She came in prior to the sitdown we had in the shop,” Howell said, “and we had a great discussion about what her knowledge was of the LGBTQ community and also where her opportunities were where she had some blind spots.”

Mendenhall answered a few questions at the Saturday community session, but mostly listened as Howell’s clients and friends expressed the struggles they’ve experienced as LGBTQ people in Utah.

“Erin walked out of there like fully transformed,” Costigan said. “She really had a better sense of, like, ‘This is not just about gay marriage. It’s about people being able to go to a bathroom that feels safe, and what can I do to make sure that happens.’”

Mendenhall announced on June 4 that Salt Lake City employees and their eligible dependents can seek gender-affirming surgery through their health care plans.

Howell has also spoken at Utah State University-Eastern’s diversity conferences and has plans to continue to cut hair for the homeless at the Volunteers of Utah Homeless Resource Center, after they were forced to stop due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

“This is someone who is invested, not only in making sure people feel comfortable with their haircuts, but someone who is invested in the greater community…” Costigan said. “When it comes to walking the walk, I think Friar Tuck’s is not just a barbershop, it’s a place that’s fighting for visibility and building relationships with stakeholders who can make decisions.”

Howell credits their community for keeping Friar Tuck’s afloat after state mandates required the shop to shutter. The shop did not receive any CARES Act or unemployment funding during the pandemic, they said.

Grateful for how their one-chair barbershop enables them to engage with people on a more intimate level, Howell mused that the difficulties they encountered in trying to get a haircut in Price continue to inform how they run their business today.

“Now, I kind of joke that I’m a professional gay,” Howell said. “I’m successful not in spite of my gayness, but a little bit because of it.”