The Carolina Panthers NFL club announced it has hired Justine Lindsay, a 29-year-old Black trans woman, as the league’s first transgender cheerleader after she auditioned for the cheerleading team with other applicants, NBC News reports.
Lindsay will join the Panthers’ cheerleading squad, called the TopCats, for the upcoming season. “Cats Out the Bag you are looking at the newest member of the Carolina Panthers TopCats … the first Transgender female,” Lindsay wrote in an Instagram post. “This is a moment I will never forget and I cannot wait to show you all what this girl has to bring.”
After being on the receiving end of transphobic posts from around the country, Lindsay posted Monday: “Thank you to all my haters who think I’m bringing the organization down, clearly I don’t. The carolina panthers Organization is an excellent one, one that supports all people.”