Cheerleading with Pride

Perhaps some of our listeners were cheerleaders and already know the magic: the adrenaline of a routine, the trust it takes to lift and be lifted, the deep bonds that form on a squad. For others, cheerleading might bring up a story shaped by stereotypes, fueled by movies and media, by a sense that this was a space with very specific rules about who belonged and who didn’t. Maybe you saw a world that could feel exclusive, gendered, and out of reach. But, something is shifting. From college sidelines to professional arenas, we’re seeing more openly LGBTQ+ athletes—gay, trans, and nonbinary cheerleaders—showing up, taking space, and changing what cheer looks like from the inside out. The image of who gets to be strong, spirited, and celebrated in this sport is expanding in real time, and today’s guests are part of that transformation. In this episode of In the Den, we’re joined by leaders from the Pride Cheerleading Association—an organization that’s not just opening doors, but reimagining the whole structure of the sport. They’re building inclusive cheer spaces for adults of all ages where queer and trans athletes don’t have to fit into outdated roles to belong.

Special Guest: Hayley Digerdissen

Hayley Digerdissen joined the Pride Cheerleading Association (PCA) Board of Directors in 2022 and accepted the role of President in 2023. Although she puts little stock in the title because she appreciates just how much the PCA Board accomplishes as a collective entity, she is committed to helping PCA grow in its impact, outreach, value, wellness, and kindness in whatever ways she can until the next clearly superior successor takes over. 

Special Guest: Jayden Feldman–Co-chair of PCA DEI–Cheer Colorado.  

Jayden is a manager, personal trainer, and advocate who believes that no one should have to walk their path alone. As a transgender man who began his transition at 14, he credits his resilience to his parents. 

Special Guest: Sara Toogood

Sara Toogood is the Secretary of the Board for the Pride Cheerleading Association and one of its Founding Directors. She also serves as PCA’s Marketing Chair and PCA’s Delegate to the Federation of Gay Games. She is also a mom of two elementary school children. 

Special Guest: Alex Romo

Alex Romo, Sacramento Cheer Elite, has been cheering since the age of 15. What began as a love for the sport became a path to community, purpose, and self-discovery. As a Mexican gay cisgender man, he knows how powerful it is to feel seen, affirmed, and accepted.

Links from the Show:

• The Pride Cheerleading Association 
• Start a team
• Find PCA events
• Join Mama Dragons today

In the Den is made possible by generous donors like you. Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today at www.mamadragons.org. 

Transcript

SARA: Hi everyone. Welcome to In the Den with Mama Dragons, a podcast and community to support, educate, and empower parents on the journey of raising happy and healthy LGBTQ+ humans. I’m your host, Sara LaWall. I’m a Mama Dragon myself and an advocate for our queer community. And I’m so glad to be part of this wild and wonderful parenting journey with all of you. Thanks for joining us. We’re so glad you’re here. 

Hello, Mama Dragons! Get your pom-poms out, because today we are diving into the world of cheerleading. And for some of you listening, maybe you were cheerleaders like me, you already know the magic, you know the adrenaline and the trust of lifts and the bonds that form from being on a squad. But I know for others, cheerleading might bring up a different story. One that's shaped by unfortunate stereotypes, fueled by movies and the media, and a sense that that was a space with very specific rules about who belonged and who didn't, and a world that could feel often exclusive, very gendered, and out of reach. But something is shifting. From college sidelines to professional arenas, we're seeing more openly LGBTQ+ athletes, gay, trans, non-binary cheerleaders showing up, taking space, and changing what cheer looks like from the inside out. The image of who gets to be strong, spirited, and celebrated in this sport is expanding in real time. And today's guests are part of that transformation. With us today In the Den, we're joined by leaders from the Pride Cheerleading Association, an organization that's not just opening doors, but reimagining the whole structure of the sport. They're building inclusive, charitable cheer spaces all over the country for adults of all ages, all abilities, where queer and trans athletes don't have to fit into outdated roles in order to cheer and dance and find community and belong. With us today, I'm excited to introduce to you, Hayley Dingerdissen, President of the board and also a member of CHEER DC. Jayden Feldman, co-chair of PCADEI and Cheer Colorado. Sara Toogood, Secretary of the Board and part of CHEER San Francisco, and was once a part of CHEER Seattle, and Alex R, part of Sacramento Cheer Elite. I feel like we have all the coasts covered. Welcome to In the Den, everyone. We're so glad to have you with us.

JAYDEN: Thank you for having us.

HAYLEY: Yeah, thanks.

SARA L: When I first heard about Pride Cheerleading Association from one of the team members on the podcast team who is part of CHEER Seattle, I went bonkers. I was like, we have got to do this episode. This sounds like so much fun. And particularly in this moment when on the podcast, we've been leaning into some really difficult and heavy topics in light of the political climate and the challenges that are faced by our queer beloveds and particularly our trans beloveds and trans kids. An episode about queer inclusive cheerleading sounded so joyful. So I'm just delighted to be talking about this today. Sara, I wonder if you can start and just give us a little bit of the origin story. How did Pride Cheerleading Association come to be?

SARA T: Absolutely. Once again, I'm Sara Toogood, she/her, and I always like to share that this is not my story to tell. I did not invent PCA, I talk about it all the time. And I have mastered the art of sharing this story. But it definitely predates my participation in charitable cheerleading. So PCA got its start long before PCA was the acronym, in the 80s, in the AIDS pandemic in San Francisco, right in the epicenter. The community was learning that it needed a little bit of hope and cheer to get through the day. So there was an organization of gay men who called themselves at that time the Hayward Rah Rahs. And if you know your Bay Area geography, Hayward is just across the bridge – but no bridge or tunnel can disconnect us – the Hayward Rah Rahs cheered all over San Francisco, bringing a little spark of hope and a lot of smiles to people who were infected and affected by HIV and AIDS. This idea took storm, and eventually, the name of the team grew to become CHEER San Francisco. CHEER San Francisco learned that the operations of such an organization would only advance more and more if they became a legal entity, a 501c3 nonprofit. So that community-building could happen at bigger levels and impact causes that were even smaller than them. So this idea really just moved from major city to major city across the United States very quickly. So, flashing forward to about 2002 or 2001, CHEER Los Angeles and CHEER New York became the Twin Sibs that year. They were born out of necessity in their communities. And really, it was an escalated growth from then on. So the idea of becoming one unit, one family across the nation, was necessary by about 2004. So the teams that had formed got together and decided they needed to name themselves. And out of pride came our name, the Pride Cheerleading Association. So, again, flash forward about 10 more years, I land on the scene in about 2010, a performing volunteer for CHEER San Francisco with Alex R, and quickly rose to Captain status, and then had to leave. And I think it was the having to leave that reminded me that this was an important part of my being. So since then, as I've moved around the country for various reasons, professional and personal, I've helped found teams across the country, and now we are 15 strong.

SARA L: Amazing. 

SARA T: Great to tell, but it didn't start that way.

SARA L: I had no idea, that is such a – what a beautiful lineage to be part of. And so I'm curious to hear from all of you. We'll start with Sara, and then we'll just go around. How did you find the cheer team, and what led you to cheerleading? Were you a cheerleader in your early life?

SARA T: I think Alex should go. I already name-dropped.

SARA L: Okay, Alex.

ALEX: Okay. I started when I was in high school, I was a cheerleader in high school. I fell in love with the sport just because I had a girlfriend that wanted to cheer. So her and I joined the team together. And from that, I just grew a passion of it, and it just kept loving it and loving it. And then when I graduated high school, I had to cheer somewhere because I couldn't make my college team because I was still 16 when I graduated. So I couldn't make my college team because they wouldn't allow me to cheer, because I had be 18 to be able to cheer at a college level. So I found CHEER Sacramento and they allowed me to be on the team. Although it's an adult nonprofit team, they let me on the team just for fun. And that's how I fell in love with the sport. And I just kept going back to more and more. Once you get into a team, there's no going out. You can't get away from it. Cheerleading is a monster that eats you, but in a good, healthy way.

SARA L: That's fantastic. I love that. How long have you been cheering with CHEER Sacramento?

ALEX: I cheered there for 3 years, and then I moved to CHEER San Francisco in 2011. That's where I met Sara. We were freshmen together on CHEER San Francisco. And then I went back to my Sacramento team just recently in 2021.

SARA L: Awesome. Hayley, how about you? How did you find your way?

HAYLEY: So I did cheer in college with someone else who is on this phone call. And I heard through the grapevine from Sara and from another now-teammate who lived in the DC area, that a team was starting. And we are of the generation where Facebook came to life when we were in college. So that's mostly how I tracked people that I hadn't talked to in decades since college. So I was aware that these teams existed and thought they were really cool. But like most people, I just assumed when I cheered at our last NCAA tournament, in spring of my senior year of college, that was going to be it because what are you gonna do after that? And it's a great time, even when your team loses, to sit on the sidelines for. But then I heard these murmurings, and this coincided for me at a time where I was just feeling – I mean, honestly, kind of guilty – but just really disillusioned, I think, with what was happening in the country. I had been looking for a way and a motivation to get more involved, even though we could argue, and should argue, that there are always reasons to be involved. The year prior, one of my best friends lost a very good friend of theirs in the Pulse shooting. And so a lot of things were just coming. And I grew up in Southwest Florida. So a lot of things were just coming full circle. I was also had fairly recently started my PhD, and had a toddler. And I was just thinking about the world in a different way. I felt, while very much in love with the rigors and analysis that I got to do as part of my program, also kind of isolating. The people in my lab were great. I didn't have a social network beyond them. And I wasn't doing anything physically healthy. And I was just increasingly upset with the idea that many people in our country thought that some people being floated as potential leaders of that country at the time could be good for this country. And I just was looking and looking and looking, and then I saw it, and I just made that decision, honestly, that day. I hadn't decided. And I was like, I'm just gonna go to tryouts. I'm just going to go. I have no business doing this anymore, like, I can't even reach my toes. I'm just going to go and we'll see what happens. And 10 years later, here we are. And little by little, you get your claws in. It was actually a reawakening of the sport in a way that I feel much more supported in the sport than I ever did on any of my past teams – no offense, Sara – just like the community that you have when you're cheering for something bigger than school pride. And just the growth of the sport, even, over the course of our lifetime right? Like, again, I'm not the one doing those skills, but the skills that these teams do now, are phenomenal. It's wild to me now to look back and think that my cheerleading experience could have just ended really well and happily, but that would have been it, because I have done infinitely more in the last 10 years, than I think I had done in the first 10-ish years of my cheer experience from the first time I was on a rec league in second grade in a t-shirt and really long, stringy pom-poms.

SARA L: Yes, yes, that is a great story. Thank you. And I have some follow up questions, but I don't want to forget Jayden. How did you find cheer, Jayden?

JAYDEN: So I found cheer in high school because it was my only option of sport that I could do in high school. I came out as trans my freshman into sophomore year. And the sport I was doing was cheerleading. I was no longer allowed to do. So, my sophomore year, I kind of spent without a sport, and it was the first time since I was, like, 5 that I didn't have a sport. But I got voluntold to become my school's mascot. So I got to work with the cheerleading team directly. And through watching them over that year, I just fell in love with this sport, and it was really the only sport I felt safe in as a trans person, because it didn't make sense for me to be on a girls' team, but the guys of all the sports teams were not nice to me, and cheerleading offered that space. Everyone, the girls, the guys on the team, just welcomed me with open arms, and it all of a sudden, my gender didn't matter anymore to play the sport. And I fell in love with it. I went to college on a scholarship for it. And then after that, I kind of, like Hayley said, “We don't cheer as adults. What?” And so I went back to my high school to coach cheerleading because I really wanted to give kids who were like me the opportunity to be seen in such an amazing sport and in such an amazing way. And I went back to coach them. And when I took over our Instagram, all of a sudden, when I was scrolling through our Instagram, I saw an ad for CHEER Colorado. And it was posted the day before the last tryout for that season. And so I immediately DM the team and was like, “Hey, I know I haven't been to your boot camps. I know I did not go to your first try out. Will you send me your tryout information? And I will see you tomorrow.” And I walked onto the team and was welcomed with open arms by CHEER Colorado. And then I got my way into Pride Cheerleading where I got to meet Sara and Hayley. And this sport's home to me. I've never felt more welcome in a space than it was CHEER.

SARA L: That's beautiful. I love that story. That touches my heart and reminds me of how it felt to be on a squad when I was in high school. Sara, go back to your past. I don't think you shared that story with us. How did you find your way into cheerleading?

SARA T: So it's the classic story of “Your school has no gymnastics team, this is a last resort.” So that is me. Not only was I a cheerleader on a high school team with a red and black uniform, not only was there another local high school team with a green and gold uniform, but Bring It On, the orig. was actually filmed in my hometown. And we were extras in the movie. 

SARA L: Amazing.

SARA T: So all of the very athletic and creative cheer choreography was done by my all-star coach, Ray Jasper, name-drop J-Bu. Who is now the most infinitely famous cheerleading choreographer ever in the world. But the opportunity for us to be extras, we had no idea this was gonna become a smash hit of a movie. We did not want to leave practice to go and be extras in this movie. I lied to get out of it, because I thought it was gonna be this 90s montage of a bunch of polyester. Turns out it revealed a lot about the sport and taught us to be more revealing about ourselves and our feelings and the grit that's involved. So I got into it because I was that gymnast who looked down from the stands at the cheerleaders and said, “I can do that.” And once I got down there, I realized that's where I was meant to be.

SARA L: Amazing. Wow. You all have amazing stories. But Hayley, you said something, and I wanted to get into this about being in that phase of your life, all of you having cheerleading backgrounds. I know Pride Cheerleading Association really works hard to be accessible to people of all levels and experiences. And Hayley, you talked about that phase of adulthood where you couldn't even touch your toes anymore. So, talk to me a little bit about how the association and how teams work to be open. So, for someone listening who's like, “This sounds fun. But I've never been a cheerleader before. I couldn't possibly.” What would you say to them? How would you talk to them about considering being on a team?

HAYLEY: So, one thing that I would say is that each of our teams operate in very different ways. And so many of the more mature teams are incredibly skilled teams. Some of them operate more, honestly, like entertainment companies because that's how they make the money. And they make really good, huge donations that many of us are very jealous of, in loving ways. I think many of the newer teams or younger teams out of necessity, can't go right in and establish a 40-person team with all of the most elite levels of skill, and I attribute my continued reign on CHEER DC precisely to that fact. I gave a great interview. I know they wanted me there as a person. Would they have passed on me as a stunter if they could have? Maybe. I also show up to things, that's a big thing that you need for volunteers, right? Be there, show up – on time, if you can. That's not one of my strong suits – and be kind, right? So I do think it's worth noting that different teams have different personalities, both of their people and of what ultimately is their ideal market. I think what I would tell people, certainly coming to my team, some of our best athletes over the last 10 years have been those people who showed up who never got to cheer. We had one person on our team who, in their interview for the team – which I get to sit in on as a board responsibility and honor – shared how they actually were never formally taught any cheerleading technique because they were not allowed to be on the team in their high school. But they would sit in the gym, and they would watch the practices. And so they came in with no experience, but having to be retaught a few things but having a pretty good idea of how things work. So we have people with these passions. We have other people who, maybe because of their body type, never felt like they could be welcomed in a space whether or not they had ever tried. You know, we work out custom uniform arrangements to make sure everyone feels that they have what they need. And that sometimes requires conversations with the vendors to say, “We understand that this is not what you usually sell, and we cannot buy from you if you cannot uniform these people too,” right? So I would tell anyone, show up, ask questions, advocate for yourself, and teach us what gaps we have. Show us where we're not accessible. Show us where we're not, because we're trying. But we don't do everything right. And we do better every time we fail because then we know how to improve. And while I never want someone to feel like they’re a point of failure or something that needs to be adjusted for, sometimes the organizations can't know that until they have those experiences. But for most people, most – especially, I'll say, younger adults, although we do have people well into their 50s and over on many of our teams who can touch their toes, maybe, as most people can, and I have just lost all of my flexibility in my hamstrings, whether from pregnancies or lack of good use. Anyone, anyone can show up and cheer. You can learn to do choreography, you can learn to tighten your motions, you can learn to do a stunt, you can learn to do a stunt in almost any position. Are you going to have natural inclinations toward one or more things? Sure, just like anything else in life. You should never feel like you can't try just because a TV show or a movie or a mean person in your high school said that you couldn't or shouldn't, and somewhere that got in your head that you started to believe it. That's wild, and it's something that, in addition to supporting Pride, I think we all think about what can we give back to the sport? And I think breaking down these systemic barriers is one of the biggest things that we do. I mean, it's very intentional, but not necessarily directly, just by being those examples. I think that we all recognize that as an externality, and we're very proud of it and want it to keep growing bigger and bigger. We do change the sport. People see us, and they are excited about it, and that's really great.

SARA L: That is really great. Jayden, you mentioned tryouts and boot camp.

JAYDEN: Yes, I did.

SARA L: Can you talk a little bit about what is cheerleading boot camp? Do all teams have a boot camp? Or was this just particular to Colorado? And what did tryouts look like?

JAYDEN: So I'm not completely sure if all of our teams have boot camps, but the way CHEER Colorado operates is we have about two weeks of what we call a boot camp, which is basically just people who are interested in trying get to come to our gym for two weeks and learn what we're going to give them at tryouts in the two weeks after that. And so, it's just us working with them for an hour a week, working on stunts, working on choreography, giving people who just want to try it, who see us during Pride and are like, “Man, that looked like fun, maybe I can give that a shot.” So we let them come and try it if they've never tried cheerleading. And then we go into the tryouts, which is a two-week process for people who can't make both days. And for me, tryouts were good. They consisted of a stunt section. You had to perform two stunts in a group. You also had to learn a dance. I don't know how I got on the team, but it's fine. And then we have a spark evaluation, which is our values and standards evaluation, where people basically look into our values and then they do some sort of project of their choice, whether it's an essay, a video, or anything, a slideshow, a poem, on how they meet our values.

SARA T: I love when I hear how different teams describe their joining phase, because part of my responsibility with PCA is to do the marketing for how PCA shows off all of our 15 teams. And I love when I hear back, “We don't call it that”, because then I get to try to come up with an inclusive name that we can all agree on. So, Try it Outs, and just join the fam.

SARA L: I love that.

JAYDEN: I like that.

SARA T: Like, we are a family, and I think we all kind of get these little tingles when we think about we cannot ever leave cheerleading, but it's a good thing. Like, it's just a part of us, so anyone who has touched our lives as a part of our family, CHEER Boise is going to happen in 6 months, I told you, Sara. But I think I wanted to share that it's a different experience for every person in every city. And that's part of the beauty of it. And, I mean, maybe Alex, maybe you remember in our Try it Outs. We had to give a bucket speech, which we call the fundraising that we do in person. We carry a donation bucket, kind of like the iconic Salvation Army bucket. So you thought you were going to be judged on cheerleading skills, and of course, you were a little bit. But then they gave you a bucket, like that one right there. And they said, “Sell it to me. Make some money.” Now, this is not a for-profit company. They're all 501c3 non-profits. So you know this money is going to turn around to do good in the communities. But I unzipped my jacket. And I put a little cleavage where it needed to be to make the money for charity. Our crowds love those, love those moments. So that was what my tryout experience was kind of like. But I also want to hear more from Alex. If you remember the same things that I do. But it's really about where we put ourselves and what we look like when we put ourselves there that draws a different type, a more broad audience of cheerleading participants. Digitally, if you look at the Pride Cheerleading Association's website, it is not the top flyers. It is all the bases. You see a bunch of strong arms holding a bunch of white cheerleading shoes, and we are here to reduce the stigma that cheerleading is a “blonde, feminine person on top of X number of other people holding them up.” We want to emphasize that this is a whole community of a bunch of different parts working together, and that our diversity is part of our success. The putting yourself in community digitally is one thing, putting yourself in community really in person, is how a lot of our teams draw the interest. And I think this speaks to how Alex started. Where did you first see CHEER San Francisco, or any of the PCA teams, Alex, and how did that feel to you?

ALEX: I was a member of CHEER Sacramento, and I watched them perform for the first time at Rainbow Festival in Sacramento, and I just watched them. They're all very diverse. JRSF is very, very diverse, and I just fell in love with them, seeing people that were in their 50s, and people in their 20s working together for a good cause. And who doesn't want to be part of something like that, you know? Like, I want to be able to make an impact in my community. So I joined the team that had the most diversity because me being Latino and being a gay man, I need diversity to be able to be successful. Like, that's part of my everyday life and cheer stuff brought that to me and showed me that with that, it's possible to raise money for your community and to be able to be part of something bigger than yourself.

SARA L: That's awesome to hear. And that is unusual. You have touched on it, Sara, in that I think even in 2026, cheerleading still has some unfortunate stereotypes. You talked about the self-examination required of Bring It On. I was cheerleading in the 90s. There were serious stereotypes in the 90s about who could be a cheerleader? What a cheerleader looked like? Oftentimes, the cheerleaders were the mean girls, right? And there was a lot of exclusivity and a lot of jockeying for position, and all kinds of stuff like that. So talk a little bit about what parts of the way that cheerleading is depicted feel true, and then what parts are limiting? What parts have you had to push back against or redefine in this context?

JAYDEN: If I may, I have a perfect example, so at least for one of the ways of pushback. So, as I said, I also coached cheer. So, I was coaching an all-star team, and we were having a summer camp. And all of a sudden, one of the girls comes up to me crying because someone said she couldn't go in the air because they wouldn't be able to lift her. And this camp had probably over 50 kids between like five coaches, and I – as loud as I could in my cheer voice – stopped the entire camp. And I reminded them that it's never about weight. It's about how strong you are as a person to lift someone up. I was like, I don't care if they're 200, 300 pounds. You better be strong enough to get under it. And I think that that's where cheer kind of gets a little, it's both true and false. Some, there's still a stereotype that “It's easy, come on, anyone can do that. I'm in the gym, I can bench 250, I can throw a human. Who can't?” Like, you hear that sort of thing. And we're like, “I can stand there and cheer for a football game. I do it from my couch.” But then you get into, like, seeing it younger, and then we saw it when Netflix came out with Cheer, and followed Navarro, and just saw a little bit more of respect and how hard it is. And now you see high schools pulling kids from the football team to join cheer because there's more money in scholarships for male cheerleaders instead of male football players. And you see it just when people see us and they see how hard it is, and getting that respect. But also, one of the things that is true is it's the cool, flashy, awesome sport, where you get to throw people in the round and they get to do cool tricks. But fighting the weight stereotype between cheer and dance and any female sport, it's hard, and especially with young kids, it starts so young. Those kids were like 5 to 12 and that was a problem that I had to address. So, we still see that stereotype pretty heavily in the community.

SARA L: Yeah.

SARA T: And one of the things that I try to do when I interact with a new group, a new audience group, if I'm on the microphone and able to engage people in this way, is I will bring any random human being who makes eye contact with me, I will bring them to center stage. They have no idea what's going on. Neither do the cheerleaders behind me. And I'll just say, “Look at your shoes, okay, they're not spiky, I need three bases” And usually Jayden's the first one to run up. But I will just demonstrate to the crowd that we can elevate and center any human. It might not look exactly like what we have choreographed, because we've practiced for nine months, mind you. But we will put any human up in the air. We'll ask them first, you know, “Do you want to go here, or here, or here?” And then usually we respect their decisions. But you can give a person that life-changing experience of just being elevated slightly off the ground by three very smiley people. And that inspires any audience member to try something new.

SARA L: I love that. Real life demonstration. Jayden, you spoke a little bit about your own experience in being excluded from cheerleading because of your identity. I'm curious to hear from each of you in your context and in your teams. What kinds of stories of transformation are you hearing from your squad of people who've had similar experiences, whether it's cheerleading or other sports, or in life of that exclusion because of their queer identity. And how is it transforming by getting to be in this cheer squad, that's very intentionally working to bring inclusion and bring belonging in while also doing the performance and the practice and nine months of rehearsals.

JAYDEN: Man, that's a hard one. I'll say that when I started on CHEER Colorado, everything that CHEER Boulder was going good until I lost my job, because at my high school because some parents found out I was trans and didn't want their kids around me. So I did get excluded that way, too. And CHEER Colorado and pride cheerleading had my back and saved it. But as far as everyone else on my team, when I started, I was the only, to my knowledge, I was the first and only trans person on CHEER Colorado. And now we're five years later, and we have four on our team, including me. And so it's just been amazing to see these people come in. And at first, they are a little nervous, or they're pre-transition and trying to figure things out. And then watching as they go throughout the season and just find more of their self, feel more confident asking questions because they're around people that are like them for the first time that they've known in a sport. And then having them start their transition somehow is you can just see it on their face from when they start, and the nervousness and the shyness of, “Am I going to be accepted here?” And within a matter of months, you see them shine because of the environment that they were given. And you see that they feel safe. You see that they feel welcome. And I think that's true for a lot of our teams across the states is, every time I go with Pride Cheerleading Association, that's a lot of people to be in a room. And it seems like not a single person is sad or upset or feels unwell.

SARA L: That's beautiful. Alex, what about you? Do you have a particular memory or a transformative story that has stuck with you?

ALEX: Just joining CHEER SF and knowing that they put me in a place where I felt comfortable enough to be myself and be able to open up – and I was I was 19 years old when I joined CHEER SF – so I was still figuring out who I was as a gay man, and starting to figure out who I was in general in life. And they made me feel so comfortable that I was able to explore and be comfortable with who I was, and also be able to learn and grow from people that were just like me. Like there was other people that represented who I was as a Latino gay man, and I was able to learn from their experiences and grow into the person that I am now. And I love who I am now. So I think everyone that I've been part of teams like that were like me, and they created a space for me to be able to accept myself and be able to grow into the person that I wanted to be in cheerleading and outside of cheerleading.

SARA L: That's beautiful. Hayley, what about you?

HAYLEY: So me, personally, this is where I like to remind everyone that I am a guest in this space. I'm an ally. And I mentioned in my bio that I have someone very close to me early in life who was gay. And they are no longer with us. But they never were openly out fully to everyone. So even in their passing, I feel like I can't out them, so I don't always share that directly. But is that a huge part of why I do what I do? Absolutely. Um, so for me, I think about what I know about that person's experience. And any time I see joy and openness and accepting and just the good parts of Pride, right? Pride is still absolutely, and even more so in some ways, 100% -- especially in Washington, D.C. – a protest. We do often get to focus on the joyful. So I just soak up that joy. And I just feel so honored to be able to share. And if I'm doing anything to help promote it and make it more likely that someone does not have to relive that experience of not being able to be fully authentically themselves for their entire life, that is what I very selfishly take from my experiences. But we have countless examples of people who either, again, didn't get to cheer when they were younger, or maybe some of our trans and non-binary members who are such amazing athletes, but left their competitive cheer teams because they kept getting misgendered. And let's be honest, we are not, most of our teams, are not fully LGBTQ+ community members. Many of us are, at least some allies, or in some cases, majority ally teams. So, we are also going to be guilty of occasionally misgendering people. What is different is on our teams, we teach people – well, I hope so – I think my team is doing a good job at trying to teach people “That was wrong, and this is the right thing, and acknowledge it and move forward,” right? We don't just brush things under the rug. We don't say it's okay when it's not. We don't take that autonomy or authority from the person who is being wronged in the moment. But it is a really important educational space. And I think what we do a lot of time, many people come to the teams looking for the community. Many people also come to the teams looking for cheer. Maybe they think they're not good enough to be part of a competitive team, or they just want to do something but not quite that much. But we sort of, I guess, maybe sneakily, but I really think not, turn them into these really, really great humanitarian advocates, right? All at the same time. So, it's a really special business model that I think serves everyone. And puts the burden back on those of us who have the privilege and need to be using it to support our queer friends and family as well.

SARA L: That's great. Sara, do you have a story?

SARA T: Yeah, when you said, “What about this has been transformative?” and I feel like this is very meta to say, but it has been a transformative experience for itself – it being charitable cheerleading. And so many examples come to my mind where something cracks open and a revelation happens in the community in big, big ways, And struggle across the nation, and everyone's just boiling in turmoil, like the horrendous murder of George Floyd, COVID, all of these attacks against our trans communities. But what I get to witness is how our 15 teams respond to this with authenticity, honesty, openness, having really hard conversations. Zooming each other from across the country to have these conversations with more than just their echo chambers. Let's take this right back to the beginning of the COVID Season Zero, right and the horrendous murder of George Floyd. CHEER New York taught us to sit down, shut up, and listen. And the Black community has something to say. And we sat, and we listened, and we grew from it. And another example is, I get to network with a lot of other LGBTQ sports and their highest leaders in capacities of learning, as well as, like, schmoozing and marketing and making corporate decisions together. And I was asked once, not that long ago just a handful of years ago, they were trying to put a marketing package together. And I was asked because they had gone through, down the line of all the sports, and finally got to cheerleading, “Does anyone use they/them pronouns in your organization?” And this was not that long ago, and I could only think of a handful. And now, just about three years later, I'm looking at the stats. We have 13 different gender identities reported. 13% of those report non-cisgender identities. We have 10 different variations of pronouns reported. 18% of us use pronouns that are beyond the binary. And if you're talking about sexual orientations reported, 19 different sexual orientations, 75% of which are within the queer alphabet. I mean, Jayden is very close to this data collection. I'm sure the numbers in your brain are like, “Oh my god. Thank you.” We actually finished that. To collect this data from our humans is a labor of love for them and for us. It's hard to ask, and it's hard to give this information. But I think we understand that it helps us know who we are, so that we can accelerate through our goals as the tight family that we are to do better and to be more and more inclusive every year.

SARA L: That's fabulous. It sounds to me a lot like there's this beautiful intersection growing as a community within the community, responding to the community as just being focused on this sport itself. And you don't always see that with club sports of any kind, right? Oftentimes, it's just very singularly focused on the sport and doesn't take that time to kind of weave in all these bits. And these are really beautiful stories to hear. So it sounds like it's a beautiful community to be a part of and also, you get to cheer.

SARA T: Yes, added perks. Another spectrum that we don't talk about enough, I think, is the ability spectrum, and perhaps, Hayley, you want to chime in on how we recently had a rude awakening and a growth in the area of ability and disability, and how we think about that.

HAYLEY: Yeah, we had an injury, for one of our members who was going to join the Sin City Classic, which is a LGBTQ+ sports tournament in Las Vegas every January over MLK Weekend. And they ended up having a surgery, and ended up needing a wheelchair for ambulation. And they were really driven to want to stunt still. So we had to think, you know, “There are two layers here, like, what is PCA-allowed? What does their team allow? Are they medically cleared? Even if they feel good about doing something, what is the right way to allow this or to support this, or to say no?” So I’ll throw it back to Sara, because I think you were primarily responsible for the networking that we have with these other organizations. But we went to the experts. At first, we were just really excited like, “Yes, this is so cool, We can showcase things using a wheelchair, too, and demonstrate this part of cheerleading – because I don't know if you know, but Cheerleading Worlds is happening literally, like, right now and this past weekend – And their all abilities division is such a cool thing to watch. And a lot of people just don't even know about that. So we were really, in the moment, super excited like, oh, we could show something. But then what do we show? We're not equipped to know anything about it like, what's safe for the person who is injured, what is stable for their injury, what kinds of things that we can do. So we went to our expert that Sara can share a little bit more about that organization and how they talked us through it, and what we're hoping to achieve with them in the future.

SARA T: Sure. Professionally, I'm a speech-language pathologist, and I work in pediatric rehabilitation. So I get to work very closely with occupational therapy and physical therapy. And if you look at the body and all of its functions, and what are the impairments, and how can you create participation out of something that is different, that is kind of what I do professionally. So for years now, I've been very interested in adaptive and all-abilities sports. I had some contacts here in the Bay Area, and as I moved around so much I kind of lost those. And then, I like to say these little gay-ngels just drop into my life. One year, we had a board application out, and this gay-ngel arrived from Para-cheer Spirit Northwest. And it's Lee Trudell, who's also way, way up in the USASF – The people who write the rules for all the things for adaptive cheerleading for people of all abilities. So I'm not just talking about physical, but cognitive as well. So, although he never finished the process of applying for our board, I didn't lose his email. So Lee from Para-cheer has been our go-to for not only questions like this, where he very clearly and in a kind way, asked us, well, is it a sport wheelchair? And we were like, “Oh, there's so many more questions to ask now.” But, I mean, things that I would have thought of weren't even about the chair. I would have thought of like, well, what was the mechanism of injury, and how do we move that body around within the chair? So I just think that there's so much that we can continue to ask. And it all just boils down to asking that person what their needs are, and how to accommodate those needs. So this kind of snowballs when you look at all of the other inclusive sports that are out there. So you can envision the Paralympics, you can envision the Special Olympics. And PCA cheerleading is a part of what was once called the Gay Olympics, but then there were lawsuits involved with that name. It is now the Gay Games. So, quadrenially, the largest international quadrennial, multi-sport, multicultural tournament and festival is Gay Games. It is happening in just less than two months. And we are freaking out because we have a lot of deadlines. But we are also working with the Gay Games PCA and Para-cheer have created a little model of what questions to ask. Like, don't forget to ask the cognitive questions. And we created a big spreadsheet, Lee and I, that now is in the little hands of all of the inclusive sports. And you can go to the Gay Games website and now see a little icon where it answers all of the questions about adaptive and inclusion for abilities for all of the 37 sports at Gay Games. 

SARA L: That is incredible.

SARA T: And I must volley to Jayden. Talk about a person who arrived at one of your tryouts that didn't think they could cheer. 

JAYDEN: So, this is actually my favorite story from when I was a high school coach. 

SARA T: Me, too!

JAYDEN: So I got like a week's notice to get a team together. So I put together a registration table for cheerleading in the high school that I was coaching at and people were walking by and everything like that. And all of a sudden, this kid wheels by. And he's looking over at the cheerleading table, and then continues on, and I'm like, “You want to cheer?” And he kind of looks at me and he looks down at himself and he's like, “Don't you see a problem with that?” And I'm like, “No, do you?” And his mom was with him. And we started talking, and she's like, “No one's ever come at him like that.” And he joined the team. And so I got to do some research on how to involve him in the team, seeing what the rules were with the state in terms of that. And yeah, unfortunately, that was the year that I got fired for being trans. But, you know, being inclusive, trying to create an inclusive team, but just seeing how he would light up at games. And I got to build a nice rapport with him, so we got to do different things. Like, one of my favorite things that we did at games was we did human bowling. So I would send three of my ability cheerleaders down there to set up like they were bowling pins. And I would have him wheel into them, and, like, have him knock them over and everything like that. And the crowd would go wild, and just seeing his face, because I'm sure he went unnoticed for years, or he was just that kid in the wheelchair. But in that moment, he wasn't. He was one of them having fun cheering for his team. And that was the best thing I think I ever did in my life, the best opportunity I got.

SARA L: That's a beautiful story. And it reminds us of just the power of asking those questions. “Do you want to do this? Do you think you can?” Right? Instead of coming with all of the barriers and obstacles, being open and willing to work with anybody and invite them to kind of maybe undo some of that, their own thinking about that. That is really beautiful. Alex, I'm curious, as y'all have been talking, do you have any queer specific cheers? Do you look at queer-specific music? Like, how is it being woven into the cheers and the dances and the routines and the things that you're doing, the pride and the queer identities?

ALEX: Well, we use our gay icons in music, of course, are Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, all the queens because all the queens in our music. So that's our reference to gay culture and also our voiceovers. Music is made with a lot of just raps and voiceovers that we get to put whatever we want into it. So, we usually have raps that explain what we do or who we are, or just putting our name in the gay like with drag queens performing them or saying the raps and stuff. So that's how we add them. And also we get to where, our uniforms that we have, we get to put rainbows on them. We get to wear rainbow everything we want when we go to Pride. Also we walk around with spirit buckets. And those buckets have rainbow flags on them, or have our logos with rainbows behind it. So we make it – we're a rainbow army, basically.

SARA L: I love it. I mean, obviously, I've heard you, and I would assume that the cheer teams are performing at Pride festivals and parades. Where else?

ALEX: Corporate events. Wherever they let us cheer, we'll cheer. If they want us to be there, we'll be there. It doesn't matter what kind of event it is, where it is, they'll call us, we'll be there. It doesn't matter. We've done pancake breakfasts. We have done all senior homes. We've done hospitals. We've done corporate events at the airport. Anywhere they let us come in, we'll go and cheer. As long as we get to raise money, we'll be there.

SARA T: I have lots of stories about the most unanticipated spaces that we have appeared. Alex, do you remember when – we didn't break in, but we were in the Pixar Studios, across the bay. Again, this is where the Hayward Rah-Rahs were – If you've ever tried to get into Pixar Studios, it is like Fort Knox. They don't let anybody in. But when Monsters University was about to – you remember now! – was about to premiere, they called CHEER San Francisco to come do a university-style pep rally on location at Pixar. And, like, it is literally five minutes from the practice gym. But there are gates and patrols, like, you can't get in. We got in, and guess who was there? MC Hammer, who recognized me. The collision between MC Hammer and cheerleading had happened more than once. But I feel like a lot of the cheerleaders didn't even know who the guy was, but a woman of a certain age definitely did.

SARA L: Those of us of a certain age would get excited about that.

HAYLEY: I'm going to one-up Sara and say that the coolest event that CHEER DC, -- I think, we've had a lot, but at least in my time as the Director of Events – has been invited to twice, was the Pride Party at the residence of the Vice President of the United States of America when it was Kamala Harris for two years in a row. Like Pixar, they also don't let a lot of people in, and you have to give them a lot of information. And I couldn't go the first year because I went to one of our teammates was debuting their drag performance that evening, and I had already committed. I later found out that I could have done both and was a little bit heartbroken, but that's fine. And then the second year, I was scheduled, but one of our lesbian teammates said, “Oh my gosh, am I too late?” And I was like, “Take my spot.” But the pictures are lovely. I didn't get to meet Kamala up close. I'll live. I don't know if we're ever going to get invited back to Observatory Circle. But that's a conversation for another day. We don't want to be invited right now, so that's okay too. But that's a really cool and weird thing about living in DC is you get, you know, you get all the same kinds of, sort of typical cheer or volunteer events. And then you get some of these just really wild ones, or, like, we cheered outside the Supreme Court of the United States of America for the West Virginia BPJ, the rallies for the trans athletes who are not being allowed sport.

SARA L: That's very cool.

HAYLEY: We were right out there. We did a little performance, we cheered when Becky came out with her attorneys after the other folks. That's a really wild setup, because they have basically, holding pens for both groups right next to each other. And they're yelling horrendous things over you. And we're just shaking our poms. And every time they say something loud and awful, you're just cheering louder because that's what we're there for, to be that buffer. So, I'm sorry. Pixar is great. DCA is wild, but it's better.

SARA T: So, I'm going to bring it back to the den really fast. Now, Sara's very good at making sure I don't steal the microphone, but I have one more thing to say! Bring it back to the den, all of the parents who are listening, we now push boundaries of, you know, gender, sexuality, ability. We push boundaries of age. We were talking about, you know, these 60-year-olds who are still doing bird fronts and twisting out of them. We push boundaries downward to the youth, because this is the community that is going to be our future. The children need to hear us speaking loud and proud about this. We have gone, we being CHEER San Francisco, and I know a lot of other teams do this too, I know CHEER Colorado has stories about youth partnerships and in schools. But I'm going to humble brag a little bit because I pushed this really hard. So we go into public schools in California, which if you're from California, you know public schools are a tricky place. But CHEER San Francisco does assemblies for K-5 and pushing into middle school a little bit. And at those assemblies, we certainly do say LGBTQ, and we certainly do say lesbian, and make the kids say lesbian, gay, bi, trans! What does trans mean? And all the kids raised their hand! My two kids, who are in 3rd and 5th grade, and their whole elementary school of 417 students, they all knew what it was. The teachers and staff in a U behind them as I'm doing a heel stretch full-down in a cheer uniform, they're shouting “Trans,” they're answering what these questions are? They learn the history of Harvey Milk, the colors of the flag, and students, what they take from it, is how to be a good ally and a good friend. You don't question someone's experience, you ask them, and you accept their answer. Acceptance is a big thing in Q&A. Acceptance is a big thing in when you're not even speaking. How do you stand when someone's telling you something that might be new for them to tell you? You know, you have this, uh, respect that you show in what you say, and how you interact with human beings, and if you teach kids this when they're in kindergarten, they're going to turn out to be much more friendly and open adults and hopefully the leaders of our future communities. So, get out there, get into the public schools. It's just a half-hour assembly, and you can change 417 little lives.

SARA L: Awesome. Do you partner with other youth clubs around in other places?

SARA T: Do you want to do this one, Jayden?

JAYDEN: Yeah, I can. The last couple of donations we made, we choose a different beneficiary every year, but, uh, we've done, I want to say three of our beneficiaries have been for youth. And that is youth in the black community and the queer community. And then up in Northern Colorado for kids. So helping them with kids who are displaced because of unacceptance from families. We've donated to them. And then we also work with some schools, and we get a go-in Colorado has this program with its high school students where they do diversity conferences. And so you get groups, or kids from all these high schools around, and then they go to these diversity conference trainings. And so every single year, we get to be part of the performers that go and kick off their day of conferences on diversity. And then, anytime we're out in Pride, we're always putting kids into thigh stands, or into preps if they have experience. Some of my favorite photos are from, like last Pride, when we… there's just these photos of these kids with these brightest, big smiles, just pointing at us, like, “I want to do that.” And so, I think everywhere we go, we touch kids' lives, and kids are going to be the first to be like, “Whoa, I want to do that”, and come up to us, in my opinion.

SARA L: That's fantastic. Yeah, I'm curious as we wrap up our time together. What has surprised you most about the impact of this work?

JAYDEN: how much it's caused me to grow up. If I'm being real. 

SARA L: Yeah!

JAYDEN: You know, I started transitioning in middle school, or sorry high school, so I was like 14, 15. And part of me took advantage of that, and like, ”Well, I miss being a little boy, I miss being a teenage boy, so screw that, I'm not going to grow up,” and kind of, like, held onto that, but I think because of this organization, I've really learned to love myself more, and find the parts of me that – while are part of me and need improvement – like my time management, my ability to submit papers, so Sara doesn't have to text me every detail of everything. But just this environment has gotten me to grow up when a lot of queer youth, especially coming from the trans side, I didn't think I had a future as an adult. And so knowing I have a community that wants me to continue and continue growing and living and becoming me is more than anything I can ask for.

SARA L: That's beautiful.

SARA T: Well, I can share a surprise, too. When people give what they can, it looks in so many different forms. And when you're trying to establish a cheerleading team, you think, give what you can means I base, I fly, I coach, I design a uniform, I do your music. But people need to give a lot more than that to make one of these teams happen. And I'm glad I was blissfully ignorant of that when I went to found CHEER Seattle. You need people to give legal advice. You need people to file tax forms. You need people to manage your Google Workspace. You need digital design beyond just cheerleading uniforms and pick the best colors that go together. You need community collaborators, you know, you need the people who know the people. And you need the people who give their time, talent, and treasure. And I think it's interesting how our organizations have come up with really creative ways to harness all of those gifts. And to not be judgmental when only one type of those gifts is what someone can give. So Hayley mentioned showing up. That is a huge, important part about volunteering. But we have teams that allow volunteers to not show up. I don't live in proximity to a lot of the CHEER San Francisco events. They have established part-time performing opportunities. I know CHEER Colorado really kind of paved the way with creating a whole volunteer category just called a community volunteer, someone that was just your networker. But then, if you're thinking about giving your time, giving your talent, the last of those gifts is gifts of treasure. Whenever we fundraise out in public, the most surprising gifts come your way. And since we've gotten up with the times and collected electronically now with Venmo, with PayPal, with all of our crowdfunding platforms, there will be these huge donations that come from people I haven't seen in 15 years, who maybe we stunted together once. And now they, you know, they're kind of paying back the last 15 that they couldn't be on a team. They'll drop a huge donation. And so it's just very surprising where all of these gifts come from. And I would love to say the number. The Lifetime Giving Total for PCA and all of its member teams since the beginning of ancient cheerleading written record. We have donated out to our communities $2,022,416 to local grassroots causes that benefit the LGBTQ community and other marginalized populations.

SARA L: Wow! That's extraordinary. That deserves a cheer.

SARA T: Yay!

SARA L: Alex, what has surprised you the most?

ALEX: How people from all different backgrounds work together to make one thing happen for each community because every time we cheer somewhere, all the money we raise stays at that same community that we're performing at. So, we'll go to Sacramento and all the money stays in Sacramento. We go to San Francisco, the money stays in San Francisco. So it's people from all over the area working together to build one community at a time. And that's what surprised me that we can work together, even though we all are different. We work together for the same goal, and we make a lot of things happen individually, but as a collective, we make way more things happen.

SARA L: That's great. Hayley, what has surprised you the most?

HAYLEY: I think, again, I think maybe I came to the team for a little bit different motivation than – not than everyone, but that many of our members do – I was less excited about the cheer, and more just needing to do something. So I fully expect it to dig in and do some work. I did not expect to be on the board. I did not expect to take on one more leadership role. I did not expect to be doing that now for 8 years minus the one year I took off when I had my second child. But I also, because I was viewing this as a community service opportunity, I really wasn't expecting the friendship. I wasn't, again, I feel like I'm a guest here. I wasn't expecting the community. And I definitely wasn't expecting to learn all these things that I could implement in my personal life. When my three-year-old is walking through Walmart, who is male at birth, and points at a dress and says, “Mommy, that's so pretty, can I have it?” And it's like, “Of course you can! You know, why wouldn't you?” For me, it feels, I'm just so tremendously blessed to have seen the Facebook post and just decided to go that day, and just keeps paying the benefits back to me. And I hope what I'm putting into it is, like, worth an ounce of what I get out of it, personally.

SARA L: That's beautiful. Thank you all so much. My goodness. What a gorgeous conversation this has been. And what a joyful project this is for all who get to participate in it, and also clearly all who get to even just witness it. And all that you're doing, it just makes my heart so happy. And at a time when it has been, especially where I live, so extraordinarily dark and hard for our queer community. And so I just love imagining and looking, and I hope I get to see one of you somewhere live, in person one day. But we'll certainly put all of the social links that we can in our show notes, and links to the website, so folks where there are teams can go find them in their own states and check you out. And who knows, Mama Dragons, maybe we'll even have more of you on some teams in the near future. Thanks so much for joining us, y'all.

JAYDEN: Thank you for having us.

SARA T: Boise Pride is on my birthday. 

SARA L: Thank you so much for joining us here In the Den. We want to tell you about free, public QPR classes coming in April. QPR is question, persuade, refer and it is a powerful suicide prevention training designed to equip you with the skills and confidence to recognize warning signs and respond when someone you love may be in crisis. The training is online, secure, and just two hours long. It’s a small time commitment that can make a life-saving difference. You can register for this training on our website at mamadragons.org. 

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