Who is Justine Lindsay?
In March 2022, Justine Lindsay made NFL history when she joined the Carolina Panthers’ TopCats as the league’s first openly transgender cheerleader. The announcement came quietly at first, a short Instagram post with her in full uniform, but it didn’t stay quiet. According to MLFootball on Twitter, Justine Lindsay, recognized as the NFL’s first transgender cheerleader, is set to return to the Carolina Panthers for the upcoming season.
Lindsay grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, and danced her way through high school pep rallies, college halftime shows, and local events. She wasn’t the loudest in the room; teammates from her Johnson C. Smith University days remember her as “locked in” at rehearsal, but quick to crack a smile when someone messed up a step. Shante Williams, a former squad member, told The Charlotte Observer, “She doesn’t talk about breaking barriers; she just works. And that’s why we listen when she does speak.”
On Instagram, @ justinesimone_ celebrated joining the Carolina Panthers’ TopCats cheerleaders, marking her place as the team’s first transgender female member, while expressing gratitude to fellow dancers, alumni, and friends for their support.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cbv2nIXtiA3/?
Justine Lindsay Age
Justine Lindsay was born on September 19, 1992, which makes her 32 at the time of her TopCats debut. If you ask her, though, she talks more about eras in her life than years. There’s the “student dancer era” juggling classes in broadcast journalism at Johnson C. Smith with late-night choreography sessions. Then the “hustle era” working part-time at a local gym, performing with the Golden Bulls cheer squad, and sending out audition tapes for every open call she could find.
When she called her mom, Sheila, with the news about making the Panthers squad, it wasn’t some dramatic, tearful movie scene.
Justine Lindsay Profession
Right now, she’s a pro cheerleader with the Panthers, but the work spills far past game day. In between NFL appearances, she’s been hosting a small but growing podcast called Keeping It Real with JL, interviewing other dancers, and occasionally, childhood friends.
Her road to the TopCats wasn’t smooth. In a 2023 interview with Charlotte magazine, Lindsay recalled missing out on two earlier NFL auditions. “I wasn’t ready yet,” she admitted. “Not skill-wise… mentally.” By the time she walked into that Panthers tryout at the Bank of America Stadium practice facility, she’d put in months of cardio, core strength work, and about a hundred run-throughs of her routine alone, in the rec center mirror.
When the final roster email hit her inbox, she didn’t screenshot it for Instagram right away. “I just sat there for a while,” she told the reporter. “Because I knew how much it took to get here, and I wasn’t sure anyone else understood it.”
