There was a time when only women were allowed to be cheerleaders for NFL teams.
That time has come and gone.
There are now many men who dance on the sidelines for NFL teams, with almost a third of the league boasting male cheerleaders.
Some of them are gay or bi, of course. But not all of them. We at Outsports don’t discriminate. We want to elevate the voices of all the men who are upending gender norms and taking to the field to cheer their teams.
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This wouldn’t have happened without two guys and one team: Quinton Peron and Napoleon Jinnies, who tried out and earned spots with the Los Angeles Rams cheer squad.
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While the two trailblazing men have graduated from the NFL sideline, we’ll never forget their gumption to take on the gender norms of NFL cheer and earn a spot on the Rams’ squad.
The use of men as NFL “cheerleaders” has an interesting path. Some of them take roles just like the traditional female cheerleaders: as dancers. That’s how Peron and Jinnies were used by the Rams.
Still, fans and the media continue to largely focus on the women cheering. Looking for images for this very story, it has been hard to find photos of any of the male cheerleaders listed below via USA Today or Getty Images.
You may find a male cheerleader in the background of a photo, but photographers clearly aim to capture female cheerleaders and leave the men forgotten.
It’s a sad state of the business: Gender-based biases about cheerleaders remain.
Interestingly, the Carolina Panthers have a couple male cheerleaders. They also have the only publicly out transgender cheerleader in the NFL — Justine Lindsay — and possibly in all of men’s pro sports.
Yet other teams — like the Baltimore Ravens and Tennessee Titans — have numerous men on the cheer squad, but they are used as part of stunt routines. They don’t dance, they don’t hold poms. They are there to be traditional “men” of strength.
The Ravens have consecutively used men on their cheer squad longer than seemingly any other NFL cheer squad, dating back over a decade.
Yet Peron and Jinnies seemingly broke the mold, dancing alongside the women on the sideline and during halftime and other breaks in the action.
Many of the cheerleaders go by only their first name, or maybe a first name and initial. Outsports has learned that withholding last names is to protect the cheerleaders — most of whom are women — from potential issues. It’s an unfortunate reality of the trade.
Now past the generation of Peron and Jinnies, here are some of the men who are cheering on the sidelines — and on the field — for their NFL teams. This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means, but rather some of the dancers who are shareable on Instagram.
