There are still second wave feminists, in their '70s now, who continue to insist that a lesbian with a masculine presentation, i.e. a butch lesbian, is performing a role that is oppressive to women because to dress like a man is a bid for male power. That the necktie is a phallic symbol. That a woman who puts on make-up, high heels and a too short skirt is submitting to control by the patriarchy. Those edicts pretty much ended feminism for the next generation. Let that be a warning to those wanting to demarcate gender presentation in increasingly rigid ways.
Most radical feminists make valid points. And it’s worth listening to and debating. And yes there are some that get really stuck on presentation and don’t dive deeper. There are some of us that dress the way we do for comfort and that’s it. We don’t hold to rules or roles. However I’ve met quite a few lesbians that buy into sexist roles for themselves and others to their own detriment and freedom to be themselves.
Agreed. I’m not throwing out the feminist baby with the dreary wardrobe.
I'm sorry to hear that lesbians are buying into sexist roles; There may always be those who take things literally and to extremes to their own detriment. With the trans identity in the mix, we have men taking the sexualization and stereotyping of women to extremes, but does that mean that men should stay strictly to male dress? Or behavior? Or not dance like female cheerleaders?
Nothing wrong with dressing for comfort, which I see as both a physical comfort and an emotional and social comfort. As in comfort is in the eye of society as well, given that a sarong would be deemed comfortable, for both sexes, where I grew up.
For those of us who delve deeply into fashion, and how it has been used ceremonially in various cultures to establish status, professional expertise, royal power, and cultural and technological dominance, any rigidity in this arena opens itself up to unintended and unpredictable outcomes, transgressions, sartorial subversiveness and social sabotaging.
I look forward to what Lisa has to say with this intriguing introduction.
I’d rather say that patriarcal norms made it difficult for women not to follow beauty stereotypes. And still, there seem to be a shift of many more women consciously disagreeing with those stereotypes although many aren’t bold enough to go through with it.
I am generally very much in favor of embracing gender nonconformity, for both men and women. Yet, I get why so many people didn't like this particular manifestation of it, and it rubs me the wrong way as well, although I have zero interest in American football. First off, most football fans who watch these cheerleaders probably have zero interest in seeing these guys perform their femininity in this context. Surely the people who made the decision to include them knew that, and did it anyway, knowing it would make many fans uncomfortable. So this feels like a clearly political move designed to make a point.
And what was the point they wanted to make? I frankly doubt it was that men can be super feminine without having to be "trans". That distinction is blurry to many today, certainly won't be understood by the average football fan, and was probably also not what the people who brought these men onto the cheerleading squad had in mind. I do get a feeling that to them, it was indeed an act of "queering" the cheerleading squad, and that it was a mere accident that those men weren't "transwomen".
I'm all for men presenting as ultra-feminine in their daily life, but showcasing them in a context that is primarily serving people who want to watch an ultra-masculine sport and be entertained by attractive women just feels like the wrong place, deliberately designed to get a rise out of people. It's certainly not a wise move for anyone genuinely interested in raising society-wide acceptance for gender nonconformity.
Ditto. You said it so much better than I could. Yes. It was intentional to queer everything up and leave everyone perplexed. And the people ultimately charge may have been manipulated by activists and threats? This might be too generous. Did the female cheerleaders know what they were being used to do? Never mind the concept of cheerleaders in the first place. That’s another rabbit hole.
An awareness of the audience is critical for any performance. Men who go to live sports events probably don't want to see this kind of entertainment and might very well be turned off by it. When they stop buying tickets, we'll know.
You touch on the fact that there are social processes involved in this. It is possible that the sudden visible intrusion of men into cheerleading is too evocative of the performance of men (who say they are women) flouncing around in off-limits spaces set aside for women for most of us to be immediately comfortable with the new images. They speak painfully to the ability of men to expand anywhere they wish and for many women to fall at the feet of the male idol. More than that, the deal when it came to opening "women's jobs" (elementary teaching, secretarial, nursing, etc) was that men would assume 50% of domestic and social reproductive work at home. That didn't happen. So this latest ask feels part of a "big con" to put women in a position where we must give up even more, even as cheerleaders (God help us!) now in the name of accepting "gender diversity". Warmly, PS: Love Informed Dissent. If you ever feel like a chat about this and similar issues over coffee, do let us know? Broadsheet, New Zealand's Feminist Magazine. (broadsheetmagazinenz@gmail.com)
I'd just like to chime in here regarding the oft-referred to "deal" that men were expected to assume 50% of domestic and other informal labors at home once more women entered the formal workforce full-time. We hear all these statistics about how little work the male half of a two-income home does, but I strongly suspect the lay-reading public have been fed a great deal of junk science in this area. Journalism routinely feeds us numbers from surveys that aren't worth the pixels used to convey their supposed discoveries about a given population they're measuring. I've been living a retirement lifestyle with a man for almost twenty years now (We saved and downsized, and were able to pull it off earlier than most.), and it took us awhile to adjust to the realities of our temperaments and knee-jerk expectations about who would be doing what around the house . . . and how often a given chore *should* be done, to what standards, and *how* to *properly* do the chore. They say opposites attract, and I've come over the years to appreciate how useful that can be for the overall success of a team of two very different *types* of people (like well-diversified portfolio). E.g. I learned that my man didn't leave crumbs on the table to spite me; he left the mess because he simply failed to notice them. And he learned that I don't "hide" his coffee cup because I'm trying to control him; I often "tidy" things away without even being aware I'm doing it. Anyway, I wish we could get over ourselves more and take extra time to figure out what's truly worth making a stink about versus what's a minor annoyance we should shrug off as a good trade for all the stuff our partner excels at. If we can't do that for the persons with whom we've agreed to share children, a home, a whole life, what hope is there for tolerating all the variations of weirdness with whom we've got to share a relatively free country?
The issue has been discussed so much, but to me, the issue is that people see the male cheerleaders and their right brain tells them that they are ridiculous. The left brain searches for reasons why. To me, what is obvious is that NFL cheerleading is a culturally accepted sexual display of females. Unlike most cheer competitions, the NFL cheerleaders moves are sexualized and sensuous. The male performing the moves does not appeal to the straight female, the gay male or the straight male. Pretending NFL cheerleading is something we have all had to do for decades in polite company. A few years ago, Fox and CBS stopped showing the cheerleaders because of #MeToo. Because it was obviously a sexualized display. I applaud the male cheerleaders for doing routines that lay bare the difference between an avant-garde European dance troupe and NFL cheerleaders. It looks weird, because NFL cheerleading is weird. It's an institution parallel to the girls who walk around the rings at boxing matches, but women have been badgered into accepting it as Americana. This is one of the few issues where heterodar works in my favor, I understand a lot of women looking at cheerleading might not instantly see it for what it is.
I would call myself a proponent of individual freedom to dress and present how one wishes, WHILE RESPECTING OTHER PEOPLE'S BOUNDARIES.
Of course the big boundary is male-female: I want there to be female-only spaces, female-only sports, etc, and also male-only spaces, male-only sports, etc.
So: a mens' professional football team should be open to men only.
And if such a team wants to have a cheer squad that is open to women only, that too should be allowed.
The primary purpose of the NFL is to make money. I will guess that the vast majority of people who want to buy the NFL's product would prefer female-only cheer squads. And if the buyers of the product want to complain that they are not getting what they want for their money, I think that they are perfectly within their rights to do so.
I am one of the buyers and one of the complainants. I do not want to see men in womens' roles in a performance that I paid for. If those men want to dress and present as women in their daily lives and on their own dime, fine with me, as long as they do not enter any designated women-only spaces.
But don't expect me to pay for it, or chastise me when I refuse to.
Yeah, when that first surfaced on X, I thought: "Leave those guys alone! They're certainly able to handle the choreography, and it's high time we stopped relegating feminine men to being either clowns or an underclass." But then the video showing them gyrating with two of their female team members in a ladies restroom came out, and I lost any enthusiasm for paying any further attention. I'm generally depressed by all these new fissures that seem to be forming in "the movement" to reject trans woo.
I’ve never been to a professional football game and never payed much attention to my high school’s cheerleaders (nor to the game, for that matter; I was in the highly competitive marching band throwing a mock rifle around while wearing a skirt). Therefore, I don’t appreciate the purpose of the professional cheerleaders (I did hear that the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders only get paid $15 an hour.) I know a woman who was a professional cheerleader, and it was not a good experience for her. Needless to say, the sport of football, where men bash their heads together and therefore critics say it should be abolished, does seem an unlikely forum in which to promote acceptance of “swishy” gay men. This is an exercise in queering, and I understand why traditional fans are upset. Ultimately it is a marketing decision—keep the fans happy. I’m more concerned about transgender military members who lose their careers over a change in presidential administration, for example.
"Trans" people in the military insist on entering wrong-sex spaces, just like "trans" people everywhere else. Therefore I fully support removing them from the military, unless they agree to stop entering wrong-sex spaces. I do not support them losing pension or other benefits, as has been reported to be happening.
I think there are several stereotypes for cheerleaders and that people would be upset if any of them were not followed, not just that they are female. I'm sure they mostly have perfect skin, perfect weight, perfect teeth/smiles, perfect hair, for instance? (I can't believe I was worried about writing this here but this is 2025 so I am.) I think that is maybe what is getting the reaction.
This case really interested me, because in theory I am completely gender ‘resistant’ as you call it. So in principle I have no issues with men dancing like women, etc.
Yet, I found an instinctive discomfort within myself. I probed my feelings a lot on this one.
The conclusion I came to is I am so fed up with men presenting in feminine ways and using that as a claim that they *are* women, that I am suspicious of everyone’s motives.
If the cheerleaders were open that they are gender non-conforming men, and reiterated that they *are* men, I would be comfortable.
But as it stands, it’s an unclear political message! Are you signaling allyship to queer activism? Or are you challenging traditional gender roles?
TL;DR: if the message is to expand the notions of manhood, I’m for it. If the message is that dresses make women, I’m against it. But without knowing the intent, I’m uncomfortable!
Don't you worry about sissy boys being forced back into the closet. They won't let themselves be sidelined as long as there's a molecule of air in the room.
I’m on board with your second two opening statements. As for the first, yes sex is real, but I’m not convinced there are “infinite genders” primarily because there’s no proper definition of gender that 1) doesn’t rely on sex; 2) doesn’t rely on cultural expectations given one’s sex; or 3) is somehow indistinguishable from personality.
There are still second wave feminists, in their '70s now, who continue to insist that a lesbian with a masculine presentation, i.e. a butch lesbian, is performing a role that is oppressive to women because to dress like a man is a bid for male power. That the necktie is a phallic symbol. That a woman who puts on make-up, high heels and a too short skirt is submitting to control by the patriarchy. Those edicts pretty much ended feminism for the next generation. Let that be a warning to those wanting to demarcate gender presentation in increasingly rigid ways.
Most radical feminists make valid points. And it’s worth listening to and debating. And yes there are some that get really stuck on presentation and don’t dive deeper. There are some of us that dress the way we do for comfort and that’s it. We don’t hold to rules or roles. However I’ve met quite a few lesbians that buy into sexist roles for themselves and others to their own detriment and freedom to be themselves.
Agreed. I’m not throwing out the feminist baby with the dreary wardrobe.
I'm sorry to hear that lesbians are buying into sexist roles; There may always be those who take things literally and to extremes to their own detriment. With the trans identity in the mix, we have men taking the sexualization and stereotyping of women to extremes, but does that mean that men should stay strictly to male dress? Or behavior? Or not dance like female cheerleaders?
Nothing wrong with dressing for comfort, which I see as both a physical comfort and an emotional and social comfort. As in comfort is in the eye of society as well, given that a sarong would be deemed comfortable, for both sexes, where I grew up.
For those of us who delve deeply into fashion, and how it has been used ceremonially in various cultures to establish status, professional expertise, royal power, and cultural and technological dominance, any rigidity in this arena opens itself up to unintended and unpredictable outcomes, transgressions, sartorial subversiveness and social sabotaging.
I look forward to what Lisa has to say with this intriguing introduction.
I agree
I’d rather say that patriarcal norms made it difficult for women not to follow beauty stereotypes. And still, there seem to be a shift of many more women consciously disagreeing with those stereotypes although many aren’t bold enough to go through with it.
I am generally very much in favor of embracing gender nonconformity, for both men and women. Yet, I get why so many people didn't like this particular manifestation of it, and it rubs me the wrong way as well, although I have zero interest in American football. First off, most football fans who watch these cheerleaders probably have zero interest in seeing these guys perform their femininity in this context. Surely the people who made the decision to include them knew that, and did it anyway, knowing it would make many fans uncomfortable. So this feels like a clearly political move designed to make a point.
And what was the point they wanted to make? I frankly doubt it was that men can be super feminine without having to be "trans". That distinction is blurry to many today, certainly won't be understood by the average football fan, and was probably also not what the people who brought these men onto the cheerleading squad had in mind. I do get a feeling that to them, it was indeed an act of "queering" the cheerleading squad, and that it was a mere accident that those men weren't "transwomen".
I'm all for men presenting as ultra-feminine in their daily life, but showcasing them in a context that is primarily serving people who want to watch an ultra-masculine sport and be entertained by attractive women just feels like the wrong place, deliberately designed to get a rise out of people. It's certainly not a wise move for anyone genuinely interested in raising society-wide acceptance for gender nonconformity.
Very well said, thank you.
Ditto. You said it so much better than I could. Yes. It was intentional to queer everything up and leave everyone perplexed. And the people ultimately charge may have been manipulated by activists and threats? This might be too generous. Did the female cheerleaders know what they were being used to do? Never mind the concept of cheerleaders in the first place. That’s another rabbit hole.
An awareness of the audience is critical for any performance. Men who go to live sports events probably don't want to see this kind of entertainment and might very well be turned off by it. When they stop buying tickets, we'll know.
You touch on the fact that there are social processes involved in this. It is possible that the sudden visible intrusion of men into cheerleading is too evocative of the performance of men (who say they are women) flouncing around in off-limits spaces set aside for women for most of us to be immediately comfortable with the new images. They speak painfully to the ability of men to expand anywhere they wish and for many women to fall at the feet of the male idol. More than that, the deal when it came to opening "women's jobs" (elementary teaching, secretarial, nursing, etc) was that men would assume 50% of domestic and social reproductive work at home. That didn't happen. So this latest ask feels part of a "big con" to put women in a position where we must give up even more, even as cheerleaders (God help us!) now in the name of accepting "gender diversity". Warmly, PS: Love Informed Dissent. If you ever feel like a chat about this and similar issues over coffee, do let us know? Broadsheet, New Zealand's Feminist Magazine. (broadsheetmagazinenz@gmail.com)
I'd just like to chime in here regarding the oft-referred to "deal" that men were expected to assume 50% of domestic and other informal labors at home once more women entered the formal workforce full-time. We hear all these statistics about how little work the male half of a two-income home does, but I strongly suspect the lay-reading public have been fed a great deal of junk science in this area. Journalism routinely feeds us numbers from surveys that aren't worth the pixels used to convey their supposed discoveries about a given population they're measuring. I've been living a retirement lifestyle with a man for almost twenty years now (We saved and downsized, and were able to pull it off earlier than most.), and it took us awhile to adjust to the realities of our temperaments and knee-jerk expectations about who would be doing what around the house . . . and how often a given chore *should* be done, to what standards, and *how* to *properly* do the chore. They say opposites attract, and I've come over the years to appreciate how useful that can be for the overall success of a team of two very different *types* of people (like well-diversified portfolio). E.g. I learned that my man didn't leave crumbs on the table to spite me; he left the mess because he simply failed to notice them. And he learned that I don't "hide" his coffee cup because I'm trying to control him; I often "tidy" things away without even being aware I'm doing it. Anyway, I wish we could get over ourselves more and take extra time to figure out what's truly worth making a stink about versus what's a minor annoyance we should shrug off as a good trade for all the stuff our partner excels at. If we can't do that for the persons with whom we've agreed to share children, a home, a whole life, what hope is there for tolerating all the variations of weirdness with whom we've got to share a relatively free country?
>how often a given chore *should* be done, to what standards, and *how* to *properly* do the chore
Yes. For whatever reason (genetics? socialization?), there is typically a *yuge* male/female divide on this question.
The issue has been discussed so much, but to me, the issue is that people see the male cheerleaders and their right brain tells them that they are ridiculous. The left brain searches for reasons why. To me, what is obvious is that NFL cheerleading is a culturally accepted sexual display of females. Unlike most cheer competitions, the NFL cheerleaders moves are sexualized and sensuous. The male performing the moves does not appeal to the straight female, the gay male or the straight male. Pretending NFL cheerleading is something we have all had to do for decades in polite company. A few years ago, Fox and CBS stopped showing the cheerleaders because of #MeToo. Because it was obviously a sexualized display. I applaud the male cheerleaders for doing routines that lay bare the difference between an avant-garde European dance troupe and NFL cheerleaders. It looks weird, because NFL cheerleading is weird. It's an institution parallel to the girls who walk around the rings at boxing matches, but women have been badgered into accepting it as Americana. This is one of the few issues where heterodar works in my favor, I understand a lot of women looking at cheerleading might not instantly see it for what it is.
I would call myself a proponent of individual freedom to dress and present how one wishes, WHILE RESPECTING OTHER PEOPLE'S BOUNDARIES.
Of course the big boundary is male-female: I want there to be female-only spaces, female-only sports, etc, and also male-only spaces, male-only sports, etc.
So: a mens' professional football team should be open to men only.
And if such a team wants to have a cheer squad that is open to women only, that too should be allowed.
The primary purpose of the NFL is to make money. I will guess that the vast majority of people who want to buy the NFL's product would prefer female-only cheer squads. And if the buyers of the product want to complain that they are not getting what they want for their money, I think that they are perfectly within their rights to do so.
I am one of the buyers and one of the complainants. I do not want to see men in womens' roles in a performance that I paid for. If those men want to dress and present as women in their daily lives and on their own dime, fine with me, as long as they do not enter any designated women-only spaces.
But don't expect me to pay for it, or chastise me when I refuse to.
MAJOR TYPO!!! It was supposed to say two sexes, infinite personalities!!!
Yeah, when that first surfaced on X, I thought: "Leave those guys alone! They're certainly able to handle the choreography, and it's high time we stopped relegating feminine men to being either clowns or an underclass." But then the video showing them gyrating with two of their female team members in a ladies restroom came out, and I lost any enthusiasm for paying any further attention. I'm generally depressed by all these new fissures that seem to be forming in "the movement" to reject trans woo.
I’ve never been to a professional football game and never payed much attention to my high school’s cheerleaders (nor to the game, for that matter; I was in the highly competitive marching band throwing a mock rifle around while wearing a skirt). Therefore, I don’t appreciate the purpose of the professional cheerleaders (I did hear that the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders only get paid $15 an hour.) I know a woman who was a professional cheerleader, and it was not a good experience for her. Needless to say, the sport of football, where men bash their heads together and therefore critics say it should be abolished, does seem an unlikely forum in which to promote acceptance of “swishy” gay men. This is an exercise in queering, and I understand why traditional fans are upset. Ultimately it is a marketing decision—keep the fans happy. I’m more concerned about transgender military members who lose their careers over a change in presidential administration, for example.
"Trans" people in the military insist on entering wrong-sex spaces, just like "trans" people everywhere else. Therefore I fully support removing them from the military, unless they agree to stop entering wrong-sex spaces. I do not support them losing pension or other benefits, as has been reported to be happening.
I think there are several stereotypes for cheerleaders and that people would be upset if any of them were not followed, not just that they are female. I'm sure they mostly have perfect skin, perfect weight, perfect teeth/smiles, perfect hair, for instance? (I can't believe I was worried about writing this here but this is 2025 so I am.) I think that is maybe what is getting the reaction.
Exactly, and the make cheerleaders look ridiculous because of what the female cheerleaders are there to do on an NFL sideline. Men can't do that.
I understand “wiggle room” better than “adumbrate” — that’s a new word for me! (Even though it’s apparently in The Bible.)
I was very pleased to learn a new word!
This case really interested me, because in theory I am completely gender ‘resistant’ as you call it. So in principle I have no issues with men dancing like women, etc.
Yet, I found an instinctive discomfort within myself. I probed my feelings a lot on this one.
The conclusion I came to is I am so fed up with men presenting in feminine ways and using that as a claim that they *are* women, that I am suspicious of everyone’s motives.
If the cheerleaders were open that they are gender non-conforming men, and reiterated that they *are* men, I would be comfortable.
But as it stands, it’s an unclear political message! Are you signaling allyship to queer activism? Or are you challenging traditional gender roles?
TL;DR: if the message is to expand the notions of manhood, I’m for it. If the message is that dresses make women, I’m against it. But without knowing the intent, I’m uncomfortable!
"infinite genders" is just another way of saying "gender is meaningless".
Total mis-write on my part. I meant to write “infinite personalities.” OY VEY!
Don't you worry about sissy boys being forced back into the closet. They won't let themselves be sidelined as long as there's a molecule of air in the room.
Well said. Thanks.
I think the biggest takeaway from Cheerleadgate is that some people, both on the left and on the right, just dislike gender non-conformity.
I’m on board with your second two opening statements. As for the first, yes sex is real, but I’m not convinced there are “infinite genders” primarily because there’s no proper definition of gender that 1) doesn’t rely on sex; 2) doesn’t rely on cultural expectations given one’s sex; or 3) is somehow indistinguishable from personality.
Can’t believe it. That was a mistake. I meant to write infinite personalities!!!