The Real Problem With The NFL’s Male Cheerleaders

Ah, the feeling of fall is upon us. Crackling leaves, the smell of pumpkin spice, and the return of football season — which means, once again, a relentless discourse over male cheerleaders.

As a former high school cheerleader and the mother of two current ones, I feel no more qualified to weigh in on this than anyone else scrolling X. Still, my heart sank at the viral footage of the newest male Eagles cheerleader sashaying across the field. I’m a lifelong Eagles fan, and this is not what I hope to see at halftime.

That clip, along with another of a flamboyant male cheerleader shaking his pom-poms for the Patriots, has predictably set off calls for boycotts. Self-described season ticket holders are threatening to cancel, while other commenters line up to take their spots. The backlash is rooted in a broader sense that the NFL has been going woke for years, and this is just the latest slap in the face to its fan base.

“It looks like an SNL skit from the 80s,” Fox News host Laura Ingraham wrote of the clip.

Conservative commentator Robby Starbuck agreed, arguing that no demographic at football games actually wants this.

“Maybe a dozen or so people want it and they’re nightmare customers you don’t want. At the same time it also turns off millions of fans while some are neutral but don’t enjoy it,” he said. “So why do they do it? Because they know there’s no competitor league so they can shove it down your throat, fully comfortable that not enough people will cancel their season tickets or NFL [Redzone] over it.”

But male cheerleaders aren’t actually the problem. It’s the roles and routines these cheerleaders have adopted.

There’s a scene in the cult classic sports comedy “Bring It On” where two students pass the perpetually mocked male cheerleaders mid-stretch with their female counterparts. Watching the sexually suggestive poses, one of the boys deadpans, “Maybe we should … join the squad?” 

It’s funny because it’s been true for decades: Audiences aren’t put off by men cheering. They’re put off by men performing femininity for a crowd that came to watch football.

Men are, on average, bigger and stronger than women, which is exactly why male cheerleaders have long been essential to complex stunt work, serving as bases for basket tosses and lifts the rest of the squad can’t manage alone. That’s not what’s going viral. The cheerleaders drawing attention online are the ones acting like women.

This isn’t a case against gay men in the sport, either. Look at figure skating, where a large share of elite male skaters are gay, yet the vast majority perform traditionally masculine routines on the ice. Their sexuality isn’t the point of the performance, so it never registers as being relevant to the fans. 

Male cheerleaders themselves are nothing new. The activity actually started as male-dominated in the late 19th century, according to Newsweek. The NFL added men to the Rams’ and Saints’ squads in 2018, and the number has climbed every year since. As of 2026, 11 NFL teams include male cheerleaders: the Ravens, Rams, Vikings, Patriots, Saints, Eagles, 49ers, Seahawks, Buccaneers, Titans, and Commanders.

Then there’s a separate category entirely: Men on the roster pretending to be women. In 2022, the Carolina Panthers added a transgender-identifying cheerleader to their TopCats squad. The cheerleading director said it was Justine Simone Lindsay’s “talent,” not the cheerleader’s “history-making,” that landed Lindsay a spot on the squad, as The Daily Wire previously reported.

“My goal is to create a team of individuals that are absolute fire on the field but are incredible human beings in the locker room, good friends, good people, and at the end of the day, you have to walk through the door first to get to that spot,” Lanouette said.

Male cheerleaders aren’t the worst thing the NFL has offered fans in recent years. But stacked alongside “End Racism” stenciled in end zones, players displaying social justice messages on their helmets, and a history of woke initiatives dating back to Colin Kaepernick’s infamous kneel in 2016, it fits a pattern of exactly who the league has been catering to.

It isn’t the football fans. And the NFL knows it.

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