Artist drawberry trans5/30/2023 ![]() So she ran a GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign to raise money for her transition. So if I can sell my nudes as a trans woman - fuck yeah, that's empowering."īut Strauberry's expenses for transitioning far exceed her income from zines and Polaroid sales. "I do what I can to earn the little money I need for food, cigarettes and my little closet room. One way she earns money is by selling nude Polaroid photos of herself along with her zines. "I've always been fuckin' broke," she says. In addition to hormone medication, which Strauberry will have to take for the rest of her life, the process can include mental and physical therapy, surgeries and procedures like laser hair removal. Video of SWMRS: Trashbag Baby Īlong with the mental and physical fortitude it takes for someone to transition, comes a heavy monetary price to pay. "But then I broke the same ankle two more times that year and the doctors said I was done with skating." "I had enough points to skate on my broken ankle, take third place in the last contest, and still win first place overall for the season," explains Strauberry. But tragedy struck when she broke her ankle just before the end of the season. Then, at age 12, Strauberry took first place overall in the California Amateur Skateboard League. ![]() Her parents let her drop out of school and focus on skateboarding. ![]() Strauberry dreamt of becoming a professional skater and was well on her way. Heelflips were my thing - inward and backside heelflips over huge gaps, stairs and loading docks." I was doing board slides on caskets in the back parking lot of the funeral home, and then skating parks and contests. "I literally don't remember doing anything else between ages seven and 14. "Skateboarding literally became my everything," she says. It was during those formative days at the funeral home that Strauberry first discovered skateboarding. I was always freaked out that one of the bodies might come back to life or something." "I just knew where they were, so if Tom wasn't around, we'd go into the embalming room and lift the sheets and, like, see an old dead guy or whatever," she says. "He got me my first electric guitar and showed me how to play 'Iron Man.' He had a drum set and would be like, 'Welp, no one here can complain about the noise,' and we would fuckin' jam."Īs Strauberry tells it, she was often driven to school in the mortuary's hearse, sat through countless funeral services from the back of the room while watching The Ren & Stimpy Show on a small TV, and when nobody was around to monitor her, she would sneak her friends in to see dead bodies. "Luckily, the embalmer, Tom, was a guitar player and into heavy metal," she says. She recently filmed a skateboarding part for Oakland punk band SWMRS' video "Trashbag Baby" and dropped the first-ever trans skateboarding part with Peach Sørensen titled "Strauberry Peach." Online retailer All Hail the Black Market released a Cher Strauberry signature skateboard, of which The Smithsonian secured the first deck ridden by Strauberry.īack in Antioch, Strauberry basically grew up at Higgins Chapel - a funeral home offering burial and cremation services where her mother worked as mortuary cosmetologist, receptionist and singer for ceremonies. She has become an internet sensation with coverage by Thrasher, Vice and The New York Times. On March 5th, 2018, Strauberry announced on her Instagram profile that she was transitioning. It's insane, I'm literally transitioning in front of the whole world on the internet." "My boobs are shaking and have grown so much. Strauberry has been undergoing hormone replacement therapy since January 2018 and is starting to experience some serious changes. I'm getting thicker and I have a booty now," she tells me while proudly flaunting her budding curves. ![]() "Everything is changing hella fast for me right now. Beaming with a jovial smile, she apologizes for her tardiness, citing car trouble, and then lights up the first of many Natural American Spirit cigarettes. As she gets closer, I notice that she's drawn in her signature cheek freckles, which look strikingly like strawberry seeds. Martens, an oversized blue denim jacket, dog-chain necklace and fishnets that expose her legs covered in DIY tattoos. After an hour of meandering through the 100-acre park, I see an old silver Mercedes pull up out hops a lanky and slender Strauberry dressed in a short cheetah print skirt and black Dr. And in true punk fashion, Strauberry is late. I'm at the cemetery to meet with Oakland transgender punk musician and skater Cher Strauberry, who is in town to attend a reunion show of feminist punk band Bikini Kill at the Hollywood Palladium. New York City punk rockers Dee Dee and Johnny Ramone are buried here, and so is grunge architect Chris Cornell. The Hollywood Forever Cemetery is one of Los Angeles' oldest graveyards and final resting place for hundreds of entertainment luminaries and rock & roll icons.
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