These Male Cheerleaders Are Part Of A Historic Wave In The NFL
Professional cheerleading teams are dismantling their biases and welcoming men as their newest members. The Carolina Panthers are the latest NFL team to modernize their roster, Jezebel reports. Chris Crawford and Tre’ Booker, who secured spots as TopCats, made history also because they are openly gay cheerleaders.
Crawford, a 23-year-old who grew up in Macon, Georgia, started dancing in middle school. As much as he loved cheerleading, he didn’t think it was something he could pursue after high school, Outsports reports.
Booker also enjoyed performing. His parents, along with his godmother, Emmy-award-winning director Joanne Hock, encouraged him to pursue dance. Before joining the TopCats, the Panther’s official cheerleading squad, he was a main stage dancer on a Disney cruise line.
The pair met when they were students at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem. In 2021, the two dancers showed up at the TopCat auditions knowing that their chances of making the team were low, but they made the squad.
Having each other to go through their rookie season with has been invaluable to Booker and Crawford.
In an Instagram post, Booker talked about how much he’s appreciated having Crawford by his side for the season.
“Making history wasn’t something that i thought would ever be in my book of life,” he wrote. “Cheerleading wasn’t something that i thought would be in my book of life. not only the opportunity to do it but the opportunity to do in my hometown… mind blown.”
He also shouted out Crawford.
“To my mvp , without chris by my side this ENTIRE season from talking about auditioning to working on prelims together, to the semis, finals, making the squad, and pushing through every stereotype all season. boy, i don’t think i could have done it,” he added.
Crawford and Booker also praised TopCat director Chandalae Lanouette for making them feel welcome and a part of the team. According to Jezebel, she let the men choose whether or not they wanted to use pompoms and wear Panthers-branded sports bras.
“Chandalae is the best thing that’s ever happened to me in this process,” Booker said, according to Outsports. “She pushes me to be myself. She says, ‘If you want to wear a skirt, just say that. If you want to wear a crop top, just say that. Don’t feel like you have to appear to fit into the status quo of what they expect you to be.'”
Crawford said he’s felt comfortable expressing his feminine and masculine sides as a TopCat, thanks to Lanouette.
“Chandalae has created an environment for me here that is unmatched,” he said, Jezebel reports. “Watering down who we are as individuals … whether people recognize it or not, affects the way we perform because at the end of the day, if you don’t feel comfortable in your skin, you’re not going to perform at your best.”
Booker and Crawford said they both value the space afforded to them to shine and express who they are.
When asked about what inspired Crawford to express his feminine side, he said it’s because he had to stifle that part of himself in the past, Jezebel reports.
“I typically lean more into my feminine side just because growing up it was something I was always told had to be put in a box. It was something that had to be locked up: Guys don’t do this, guys don’t do that,” he said. “Now I’m in a space where I’m surrounded by people that love the fact that this is who I genuinely am.”
Booker’s said he’s learned over the years that self-expression as a gay man is a journey filled with trial and error, Outsports reports.
“When you’re first coming out, you kind of give into that stereotype. It’s like, ‘Yeah, maybe I should be as gay as I possibly can, because that’s what the stereotype believes me to be,'” he said. “Once you go to that extreme, you have a realization as an individual that maybe that extreme is not who you are, but you have to go there to figure out if that is who you are.”
Both Crawford and Booker know that their presence on the team means something, especially to the children watching them on the field.
“I know I’m not doing this for just me,” Booker said. “I’m doing this for the person who will step behind me.”
