CanvasRebel Interview: Meet Orion Queer

“Before I moved to Los Angeles in 2019, I was a farmer in the Northeast. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and then lived in rural Maine for 7 years, growing organic vegetables & working at a creamery making cheese out of goat and sheep milk. I even spent time apprenticing at a traditional biodynamic butcher shop in Germany so I could learn traditional German charcuterie and sustainable animal husbandry practices and bring them back to the states. I thought I’d be farming for the rest of my life. I worked at a handful of farms over the years with the intention of learning & preparing to run my own farm someday. I had dreams of opening an organic local butcher shop and getting my community into nose-to-tail cuisine.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, tides changed and my intuition brought me to the city life. That was my first big risk, a leap of faith into an entirely different life. I was beginning to unravel my gender identity and knew that staying where I was would have been a tough, isolating road. I needed community and a wider acceptance of the fresh self discovery I was experiencing. I needed the spaciousness to step into who I was becoming. I felt called to a career path supporting queer and trans youth and was drawn to counseling. I found an LGBT Psychology program in Los Angeles and decided to move across the country to get my Masters in Clinical Psychology. I thought I wanted to become a therapist…” Continue Reading