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NFL viewers do doubletakes when ESPN zooms in on ‘different’ 49ers cheerleader

December 31, 2024 | | Print Article

A kicker’s awkward stretch wasn’t the only thing from Monday Night Football to set off social media as one particular cheerleader proved triggering for some fans.

Well before “transgender” became a household term, a wholly separate debate had raged about men in women’s spaces involving cheerleaders. Though some had come to accept the added athleticism for the sake of competition, the only flipping witnessed Monday night was from viewers losing their cool over the San Francisco 49ers having a male member on the Gold Rush Cheerleaders.

During ESPN’s broadcast of the Monday night match between the 49ers and the Detroit Lions that saw the visitors defeat San Francisco 40-34, some keen-eyed viewers observed for the first time that shaking pom-poms and hips wasn’t a ladies-only enterprise.

 

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Neither new to the team nor the league, comments shared surprise and frustration that a favored pastime would now require that they “defend” the decision of the owners to include men on the cheer squad.

Identified solely as Jon on the cheerleading roster, the Philippines-born rookie member who lives in Sacramento described his hobbies as “Video Games, cooking, and crocheting” and expressed being passionate about “community. As social beings, a sense of community is what we all strive for as it gives us belonging and purpose. As a Gold Rush Cheerleader, I hope to extend a hand to all fans of the 49ers to help build a strong and well-knit community.”

Jon had been preceded by Jonathan Romero, the first male cheerleader for the 49ers who stepped away from the team after cheering at the Super Bowl.

Romero hadn’t been the first male cheerleader credited with that milestone as two of the NFL’s first men to strut on the sidelines, Quinton Peron and Napolean Jinnies, had cheered for the Los Angeles Rams when the team took on the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LIII.

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Another first was reported in 2022 when 29-year-old Justine Simone Lindsay joined the cheerleading squad of the Carolina Panthers as the first male to do so who considered himself a woman.

“Cats Out the Bag,” Lindsay had posted on social media at the time, “you are looking at the newest member of the Carolina Panthers TopCats Cheerleader’s @topcats as the first Transgender female.”

The squad’s director, Chandalae Lanouette, told Buzzfeed, “My goal is to create a team of individuals that are absolute fire on the field but are incredible human beings in the locker room, good friends, good people, and at the end of the day, you have to walk through the door first to get that spot.”

Jon’s appearance at the game hadn’t been enough to detract from the other show stealer, Lions’ kicker Jake Bates, whose less-than-traditional stretching routine had taken X by storm, especially as he stuck out his tongue.

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Kevin Haggerty
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