Former NFL cheerleader says Carolina Panthers cut her for being trans
Justine Lindsay cheered for the Carolina Panthers for three seasons. Now she says the NFL team cut her for being trans. The post Former NFL cheerleader says Carolina Panthers cut her for being trans appeared first on Outsports.
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Justine Lindsay made headlines when she came out publicly as a trans woman while an NFL cheerleader for the Carolina Panthers. Now she’s making headlines again, claiming the team that contracted with her for three seasons fired her because she’s trans.
That’s the claim made by the former NFL cheerleader in an interview on Instagram with Gaye Magazine.
“I was cut because I’m trans,” Lindsay said in the interview. “I don’t wanna hear nobody saying, ‘She didn’t wanna come back.’ Why the hell would I not wanna come back to an organization that I’ve been a part of for three years?”
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Justine Lindsay shakes her pom-poms and shows off her dance moves for Carolina Panthers fans.
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She went on to say she wasn’t throwing shade at the Panthers… but then she also threw shade at the Panthers.
“It was like a big slap in the face to not only me but for the youth,” Justine Lindsay said in the interview.
Justine Lindsay thinks the last election led to her firing
Lindsay said it might have been in part a response to the current President and the moves he’s made against the trans community. Various sports organizations have adjusted policies about trans women in sports, as the President has attempted to remove all trans women from women’s sports.
To be clear, cheerleading is, like football, a non-gendered sport. If you can make it, you can make it. For years, cheerleading has in large part been seen as the women’s compliment to the almost-entirely male sport of high school, college and pro tackle football.
While a handful of women have broken through as a kicker in the college game, no woman has ever played in an NFL game or come close.
Yet NFL cheerleading remains a non-gendered endeavor, with many men participating for the Los Angeles Rams, San Francisco 49ers, New Orleans Saints and others.
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Lindsay’s participation with the TopCats didn’t “take away” an opportunity for a cis woman, as some have claimed.
So it’s a bit odd to now see that the team that embraced her for three seasons — the Carolina Panthers — are now being accused of transphobia.
The President won North Carolina by less than for points, while former Vice President Kamala Harris won the county where the Panthers play — around the Charlotte area — by 33 points.
Technically, Lindsay probably wasn’t “fired” — she used the word “cut.” Like happens with many contractors, she was probably on an annual contract that wasn’t renewed. She likely wasn’t an employee of the team — NFL cheerleaders are generally (or entirely) independent contractors.
Yet when anyone’s contract is not renewed, and particularly after three seasons, it certainly seems like they’re “fired,” at least colloquially.
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The post Former NFL cheerleader says Carolina Panthers cut her for being trans appeared first on Outsports.
