Cheerleaders. Those high school objects of adolescent desire, goddesses from the heights so many boys could never reach. Shining hair, dazzling smiles, sleek, tanned legs, bubbly personalities, blossoming breasts, hopefully revealing high kicks, ah, those halcyon days of misspent youth! The memory sparkles even now—until one gets a look at NFL male cheerleaders. Cue the loudly, horribly scratching vinyl record.
Twelve National Football League teams announced, more or less simultaneously, that they are adding male cheerleaders to their rosters for the coming season. One of those teams is the Minnesota Vikings. It is fair to say that these announcements have gotten a mostly negative reaction. Rightly or wrongly, the Vikings have taken the most heat...
Graphic: X Post
Some have tried to defend the NFL’s move on the ground that college teams have long had male cheerleaders. That is true, of course. But, to put it delicately, the ambience is a little different. Male college football cheerleaders hoist the girls up on their shoulders, do pushups after touchdowns, and so on.
In recent years there have even been male cheerleaders in high school sports. They too focus on male strengths. As with male gymnasts, they rely on male strengths and presence, doing moves women lack the strength to do. One could justify their presence on that basis, understanding their place among the girls was an extension of their gymnastic work, which if not quite as overtly manly as other sports was at least satisfyingly muscular--and they didn’t wear skirts. One might even feel a twinge of jealousy for their proximity to, and hands-on experience with, girls.
In our gender bending contemporary reality, with the NFL overtly racialist and woke, painting DEI slogans like “choose love” or “end racism” in the Astroturf of end zones, it’s still unsettling to see men of ambiguous sexuality doing moves that work with feminine physiques but look like exaggerated, pseudo-drag versions of women. Go here for a video that illustrates the point. That the two male cheerleaders in the video are of the Minnesota Vikings squad is unsurprising. They’re as twinky as Governor Tim “jazz hands” Walz.
Numbers vary, but there may be as many as 18 more-or-less guys playing girls in the NFL cheerleader ranks this season. The Spectator suggests this may be yet another attempt by Democrats to win back the men they’ve insulted and repelled.
The recent attempt of an NFL team to introduce male cheerleaders is the latest example of a media-era experiment caught in the wrong feedback loop — one where outrage, not support, dominated the reception. The Minnesota Vikings prominently featured male cheerleaders Louie and Blazie on their social media and official website, making the men a staple of their 2025-2026 session squad. Pompoms in hand, video emphasizes these dudes as “the next generation of cheer” while using their team’s women as background characters.
“Louie and Blazie?” How utterly masculine.
It’s not clear whether “they” are the NFL, the male cheerleaders or the Democrat Party, though there is nothing preventing “they” from being all three. While these 18 guys are in a sense depriving women of rare and arguably high-profile jobs, that’s not quite the point. They’re not depriving women of records, scholarships and fame as do mentally ill men figuratively and actually beating women in sports.
The real battle is over control of the culture, who gets to decide what’s normal, which is particularly obvious in sports like football generally conceded to be uniquely American entertainment.
Perhaps they want to send the message that men, like Barbie, can be who they want to be — whether that be a tough football player on the field or a cheerleader just beyond NFL bleachers. But if the goal is to create a culture in which they can win back men, this doesn’t only register as tone-deaf — it feels like outright trolling.
No kidding. Men and women are different. Pretending otherwise is jarring to Normal Americans. Inserting into Normal American entertainment effeminate men copying moves that look natural, even alluring, on women isn’t going to help the NFL--which has lately made plenty of tone-deaf moves--the Democrat Party or our culture.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.