NFL’s first transgender cheerleader Justine Linsday angrily slams home state of North Carolina for law banning trans women from competing in sports
The NFL’s first transgender cheerleader has criticized North Carolina for banning transgender women from women’s sports, insisting her role is to “set things right for the younger generation.”
Justine Lindsay, 30, made headlines in March 2022 after joining the Carolina Panthers’ TopCats cheer team, likening her dance performance to becoming a “doctor or nurse” in an interview with Elle this week.
“Everything I’m going through right now is bigger than me,” she said. “Nobody’s going to stop the show.”
Since her groundbreaking appointment, the dancer has become a figurehead in debates over the inclusion of transgender athletes in female sports, despite her own role not being threatened by a recent ban passed in her home state.
“I will fight this until I can’t fight anymore,” she said, speaking about the passage of North Carolina’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act. “It makes me sad to see it.”
The legislation, which has also been similarly introduced in 22 states including Florida, Idaho and Arkansas, bans transgender women from competing against biological women in middle school, high school and college.
Justine Lindsay, the NFL’s first transgender cheerleader, denounced the ban on trans athletes in biological women’s sports, saying she will ‘fight this until I can’t fight anymore’
Despite backlash from some NFL supporters when she won a spot on the Carolina Panther cheerleading squad in 2022, Lindsay said: ‘Nobody’s going to hold the show back’
Lindsay pictured during her audition for the Panther cheer squad
The push to ban transgender athletes from women’s sports has been fueled by a number of controversial victories, most notably swimmer Lia Thomas’ victory in the NCAA Championships in March 2022.
As the wins piled up — including a trans cyclist winning a female race in North Carolina by more than five minutes earlier this year — numerous lawmakers pushed laws restricting their inclusion.
In August, the North Carolina Legislature overrode Democratic Governor Roy Cooper’s veto and pushed through the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act — a measure Lindsay says she plans to “fight for.”
The cheerleader added that she felt personally threatened by the backlash to her joining the team, which reportedly occurred at the same time that two transgender women were murdered near Panther Stadium.
When Lindsay joined the team, she said she faced questions like “are they going to put her in a dress?”
“I just thank God that I’m still here,” she said.
“These kinds of things happen all the time, all over the country, but you don’t hear about it because people with money and power don’t want to talk about it.”
Despite becoming a figurehead in debates over transgender inclusion, Lindsay said she has no plans to shy away from the spotlight. She credits her fame as the first transgender cheerleader in the NFL with “setting things up for the younger generation.”
“Everything I’m going through right now is bigger than me,” she added.
“Did I think making the team would have that much of an impact? No, not at first,” Lindsay continued, noting both the support and response she received.
‘People said, ‘Are they going to put a dress on her? Are they going to put pants on her?” she said.
Her cheer squad teammate Chris Crawford, one of two gay men who joined the team in November 2021, added that it wasn’t surprising to see the angry reaction from some to Lindsay landing a spot on the team , noting that “we in the south.”
As a child, she said she struggled to “fit in” and was “socially awkward” before finding dancing as an outlet
Linsday is pictured performing before the matchup between the Carolina Panthers and the New Orleans Saints on September 25, 2022
Justine has also made history as one of the few professional cheerleaders who is black, and is set for her second season as Panther’s cheerleader.
After joining the team in March 2022, Linsday opened up about her past struggles, saying she was a “socially awkward” child who struggled to “fit in.”
She admitted to having “a lot of battles within herself,” including “a really bad phase” of anxiety and depression as a teenager, before finding dancing as an outlet, she told Buzzfeed News in 2022.
However, her rise to prominence has come at a time of escalating debate over transgender athletes, with many experts claiming that they have an unfair physical advantage over biological women.
Despite Lindsay noting that it makes her “sad” to see the setback, the issue forced champion cyclist Hannah Arensman out of her sport after she lost out on a podium finish to a transgender cyclist.
Champion cyclist Hannah Arensman announced her retirement from professional cycling after being beaten to a podium finish by Austin Killips, a transgender athlete
Current and former athletes say trans athletes like Lia Thomas (left), the swimmer who achieved modest success in the male categories before becoming a national champion in the women’s events after transitioning, are highlighting the physical benefits of trans women
In April, Arensman heartbreakingly announced the end of her dream of competing in the Olympics, saying the inclusion of transgender racers meant she would “lose no matter how hard I train.”
The issue came into the spotlight when trans swimmer Lia Thomas became an NCAA champion in March 2022.
A debate has raged ever since, but it was initially raised as a point of contention following the rise of Cece Telfer — who became the first openly trans woman to win an NCAA title when she placed first in the 400-meter hurdles at the Division II National Championships in 2019.
The following year, Laurel Hubbard, from New Zealand, became the first openly transgender woman to compete in the Olympics when she competed in weightlifting at the Tokyo Games.
Cece Telfer became the first openly trans woman to win an NCAA title when she placed first in the 400-meter hurdles at the 2019 Division II National Championships (photo)
Laurel Hubbard became the first openly transgender woman to compete in the 2020 Olympics
Tommy Lundberg, a lecturer in physiology at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute and a leading researcher in the field, told DailyMail.com in March: ‘The most important thing is whether or not you have benefited from male development and male puberty and whether you have done so . , you get benefits that you can’t undo later.’
This view was also shared by Nancy Hogshead, a former professional swimmer who won three gold medals and one silver at the 1984 Olympics, who told DailyMail.com: ‘Trans women have an undeniable physical advantage.
“Their bodies do what male bodies do when they go through puberty and that’s why we see pervasive segregation of sports around the world.
‘Unless it concerns just playing, just recreational sports. All competitive sports are segregated by gender.”
Notably, transgender figurehead Caitlyn Jenner, who won gold in the men’s decathlon at the 1976 Olympics before becoming one of the world’s best-known trans women, has also called Thomas’ success “an anathema to what sport represents and to the spirit of competition’.