@TEXAS MANDINGO Makes "His" NFL Debut

[Low End Derrick]

Loud and Proud​

Justine Lindsay is the NFL’s first openly transgender cheerleader. For many football fans, her presence represents a new, more inclusive era for the league’s cheer squads.

You know what she looks like. Her hair is blonde, her waist is small, and her skin is almost always white. She’s Torrance Shipman in Bring It On. She’s Quinn Fabray from Glee. But, Justine Lindsay says with a laugh, “she’s definitely not me.” Lindsay, 30, is the first openly transgender woman in NFL cheerleading. She is a sideline crusader, an agent for change from within the machoest of macho sports. And it’s not a position she takes lightly: “But I am a cheerleader,” Lindsay adds, “so I do it with a smile on my face.”

When Lindsay made the Carolina Panthers’ TopCats squad last year, she upended decades of deeply-rooted stereotypes about cheerleaders. For many football fans, her presence in the stadium has symbolized the start of a new chapter for NFL cheer, one where “it’s okay to be your most authentic self,” Lindsay says. Since then, she has started a podcast about her experience, written a viral essay on trans rights, and spoke at a GLAAD event spotlighting inclusion in professional sports. As transgender voices continue to be silenced all across the country, Lindsay is making hers louder than ever.

At times, her courage comes at a cost. Dealing with social media bullies and intolerant football fans can feel like a challenge to her humanity, but Lindsay believes it is a price worth paying. “Everything that I’m going through now, it’s bigger than me,” she says. “I’m setting things up for the younger generation. No one is going to stop this show.”

In early August, Lindsay invited ELLE to her home. Not her physical house, but the place she feels most herself: The Bank of America stadium in uptown Charlotte, where the TopCats perform. Fresh off practice, Lindsay was in the locker room with her teammates getting ready for the evening’s 2023 season kick off event. Ice Spice blasted from a portable speaker. Sparkly eyeshadow palettes, red lipsticks, and contour kits were being tossed around like fliers from a pyramid formation. At one point, an unofficial twerk contest was held. As the squad shimmied into blue and white spandex two-pieces, someone yelled out about a missing pair of pom poms. “We’re chaotic,” Lindsay says with a smile, “but we’re family.”

Her actual family members drive in from all over North and South Carolina to attend almost every game. Lindsay, who grew up in the Charlotte suburb of Dilworth, says she feels at ease in the scrum of a sports locker room thanks to a childhood spent playing sports with older siblings and a gaggle of cousins. Before cheerleading, dance took center stage in her life. She was five years old when the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater came to town performing Revelations, the company’s signature piece using African-American spirituals and song-sermons. “Seeing people that looked like me… and how they were able to move their bodies, well, it really stuck with me,” Lindsay remembers. “I was like, ‘Dang, I could do that.’”

Her father, a former college football player, hoped she’d follow in his footsteps, but her mother enrolled her in ballet instead. “He never really understood why I wanted to dance,” Lindsay says of her father. “He was like, ‘Is that who you are?’” Dance didn’t define her, but it did help her come to terms with what she’d always suspected deep down.

At 14, Lindsay was selected out of a group of 100 kids to attend the famed Debbie Allen Dance Academy on scholarship in Los Angeles, which counts Disney Channel stars among its alumni. She moved cross-country by herself and easily settled into a new community of young creatives. “I was around people who were open about being who they are,” Lindsay says. “I became more comfortable asking, ‘Who am I?’” By the time she turned 18, she had found the answer: “I was always Justine.”

How Justine Lindsay Became the NFL’s First Openly Trans Cheerleader

For many football fans, her presence represents a new, more inclusive era for the league’s cheer squads.

www.elle.com

Congrats @TEXAS MANDINGO for living your truth and making your family proud!

 

[bigdaddy88]

 

[Canada Goose]

Charlotte is a long, long way from Harlem

 

[DaKidFromNoWhere]

I apologize on behalf of my state

 

[polio68]

Muscle definition is telling me they could have been a Julio Jones type receiver or a Prime Janoris Jenkins type cornerback.

 

[FLYINHAWAIIAN]

two of those pictures look like 2018 Floyd Mayweather

 

[Womb Raider]

Where tf is Optimus Prime?


These evil decepticons MUST be stopped

 

[Windows 91]

Gotta spoiler them images

 

[Toe Jay Simpson]

This was the goal all along. They had to make sure you nikkas was scared to say something about all the other stuff leading up to it first

 

[Low End Derrick]

Gotta spoiler them images

My bad

 

[Afrodroid]

 

[BangBike]

That's Al Harrington in a sports bra, breh..

 

[Kiyoshi-Dono]

 

[SteelCitySoldier]

What year will have the first Player/Transgendered Cheerleader controversy

 

[MrLogic]