Cher Strauberry pretty much ticks every “Vans ambassador” box.

Can she skate? Yes. Is she passionate about music and art? Yes. Is she changing skateboarding for the better? Yes. But it wasn’t always like that for Cher Strauberry. Now hailed as a pioneer for her work with Unity Skateboarding and as founder of queer skateboarding brand Glue Skateboard, Cher explains in the below doco that finding a community within the sport wasn’t easy.

After finding a more accepting crowd in punk music, she took a decade-long break from skating, before falling in love with it again after suffering from severe tour burnout. Still searching for a more queer-friendly space within skateboarding she, along with Jeffrey Cheung, decided to start holding meet-ups that opened that door of expression for trans and queer skaters.

“We just took over spots and we just kind of made a place for ourselves,” Cher says. “Now that we’ve put this hole in the wall, there will be trans girls and boys who will skate better than us, be more confident in themselves, be more outspoken, who will just know more than we knew.”

The rest, as they say, is history, with Cher’s list of fans including Elissa Steamer, Corey Duffel, Rob Welsh and more. Check out the mini-doc below for the full story and to catch some fucking epic skating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh06NsMOpiQ