Born and raised as George Ward in the Traveller community in Darlington, drag performer Cherry Valentine thought their life was mapped out for them. "I was going to get a job as a mechanic, get married, have kids and that would be it," the Drag Race UK star, who has died aged 28, said in an interview with the Manchester Evening News earlier this year.
"I was always brought up on old-fashioned, stereotypical views of what a man or woman should be or should do," they said.
"I had to identify as your typical man growing up and that meant following the society rules and expectations of being masculine. There wasn’t ever any wiggle room."
