We Cheer. We're Queer. Get Use To It, Football Fans

On a scale of 1-10, the issue of NFL/ CFL cheerleaders probably ranks somewhere around 1.5. We are not talking world peace or the energy future of the globe. In fact, cheerleaders are still in the NFL basement while Patrick Mahomes patrols the penthouse of public importance. 

Having said that, let’s talk cheerleaders all the same. (Hey, CBC blames dogs for their climate change so anything’s up for discussion.) The Minnesota Vikings have announced that two male cheerleaders will join their dance squad for the 2025 NFL season. Blaize Shiek and Louie Conn have officially joined the Vikings' cheer team, marking a notable shift in tradition. They’ve done provocative videos to celebrate their inclusion.

The Vikings pair will debut when the Chicago Bears on ESPN’s Monday Night Football on Monday, Sept 8. In other words, before the largest TV crowd the virtue-seeking NFL can summon. As one might expect Team DEI thinks this is a great step forward for civilization. Because performative theatre is the goal, the mainstream media that ignored Joe Biden’s dementia and Kamala Harris’s public intoxication are over the moon with excitement at poking football fans in the eye.

Naturally those traditional fans are either vexed or simply annoyed at the Vikings’ embracing LGBTQ posturing. Some have vowed to surrender their season tickets in anger (not likely). Social media has hummed with their questions about the decision to award pom-poms to the two men. Further venom was created when one of the men was named the head of the squad.

(Question: What’s going on in Minnesota since Bud Grant left the Vikings head coaching job? From “Tampon Tim” Walz to Ilhan “I Married my Brother” Omar to Vikings cheerleaders the state has become koo-koo for Coco Puffs.) 

The cheerleader story is replete with irony. The same MSNBC— oops, MS Now— heralding the hiring are the same people who, in other circumstances, would be screaming that two women were losing their jobs to men. This is an affront to women, etc. After all, aren’t there are pep squads men can apply to if their goal is to show their tumbling skills to the world?

There would be a sombre 60 Minutes feature with Scott Pelley eliciting tears from the neglected women over this incursion. Colin Kaepernick would be interviewed about being shunned in the NFL. Martina Navratilova would pipe up about her struggle for recognition. No one would mention that other NFL teams have hired male sideline performers, too.

But in the schizoid Venn diagram that is progressive politics, where overlapping interests are ranked by their ability to shock, taking a jab at the muscular world of football takes precedence in the media over the employment status of two women. 

The transitory bias of the howler monkeys of the left was recently illustrated when black dynast Simone Biles went after white swimmer Riley Gaines for bitching about men competing with women in the swimming pool. The much-decorated Biles hissed, “You’re truly sick, all of this campaigning because you lost a race. Straight up sore loser. 'You should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding a way to make sports inclusive OR creating a new avenue where trans feel safe in sports. 

“Maybe a transgender category IN ALL sports!! 'But instead… You bully them… One things for sure is no one in sports is safe with you around!!!!!’ (Biles later withdrew her words when sponsors started pulling out of her portfolio.)

You get the picture. On the Hit Parade of Hysteria, black woman schooling white woman in the media renders the sisterhood moot in the discussion of priorities. Just ask white WNBA star Caitlin Clark: “The Caitlin Clark experience is still a dumpster fire with her fellow players. Okay, let’s be honest: it’s the veteran black/ LGBTQ players  who make up the league’s base. They are still seething over the attention Clark gets for jumps in TV ratings and sponsorships.”

The intrusion of a white, conservative, straight Catholic woman in their midst hasn’t sat well in a league where women of Clark’s description have been made to feel unwelcome in many dressing rooms. While the WNBA and other leagues have made noises about supporting all their players, the reality is somewhat different. When the NHL Staal brothers objected to wearing pink LGBTQ sweaters they were verbally lynched by the hyper-liberal hockey media. 

But when the gender is on the other foot, white women’s issues can trump just about anything. For example the recent Hockey Canada Junior gold medalist sex case was forever trying to walk a line between the rights of women and the media perception of them as poor, helpless waifs victimized by men. As the dust settles we will see that it was the confluence of horny teenage hockey players acting like idiots and a young woman the judge in the London, Ont., case said couldn’t be believed. (Not that it will save the careers for the five players,)

In the hyper-sexualized world of today it is possible— despite what the Media Party states— that not all men are rapists and not all women are the Little Sisters of the Poor. For further reading consult the 2006 Duke Lacrosse case where three men were similarly charged with confining and raping a stripper who’d come to their dorm. The feminist rage over the case made it virtually impossible to hold a fair trial.  

But they did, and the district attorney for Durham, N.C., who’d made the charges a national scandal, ultimately resigned in disgrace, and was disbarred and briefly imprisoned for violating ethics standards. The purported victim admitted to fabricating the assault and falsely testifying. The young men will never be the same.

So when it comes to the trailblazing male pom-poms on the sidelines it’s best to weigh the motivations on both sides. The NFL— which is buying up large chunks of its own media —will play the virtue card. The traditionalists will bite their tongue.

And no one will do a feature on the two women who were denied these high-profile jobs because of other agendas.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.