Conservatives are once again triggered by something completely normal that has existed for years. This week's target: male cheerleaders.Their response reveals how misogyny is what drives their concern about women's sports.Right-wing social media is obsessed with Blaize Shiek and Louie Conn, two male cheerleaders for the NFL's Minnesota Vikings. Enraged football fans, including Hercules actor Kevin Sorbo, have somehow just now discovered that several NFL teams have male cheerleaders. Theyre not happy. Sorbo took to X (formerly Twitter) to share his feelings, posting a video of a male cheerleader with the caption, "Gross. Why." He posted another saying, "I've been a Vikings fan all my life sigh. I need a new team now."Many others online agreed with Sorbo. They claimed that having male cheerleaders is ruining the NFL for them. They don't want to see men dancing alongside women like this. They contended that no straight man would.In classic conservative fashion, this freak-out reveals a deeper issue within people who think this way.These conservatives aren't just being homophobic; they're revealing that they dont see cheerleaders as athletes, or even entertainers. They see cheerleaders as sex objects.The line between homophobia and misogyny is thin.Cheerleading requires athletic feats that most people cant accomplish. It requires training and coordination. It requires strength and stamina. What it doesnt require is being sexy.In the early decades of the sport, women weren't involved at all in cheerleading. It originated as a solely male activity at Ivy League schools in the late 1800s. Several U.S. presidents, including George W. Bush and conservative hero Ronald Reagan, were cheerleaders in college.By the 1920s, cheerleading had become a formal extracurricular activity for boys in high schools, colleges, and communities across the country, related to but distinct from other spirit programs such as marching bands, drum corps, and drill teams," according to Britannica.It wasnt until World War II, when women took on many roles that men had traditionally filled while they were away at war, that women became leaders in the sport.And it wasn't until the Dallas Cowboys introduced its squad of Daisy Duke-clad dancers in the 1970s that cheerleaders became the sex symbol they are today. Thankfully, cheerleaders have made great strides in being seen as talented dancers and athletes in their own right. But that's not how conservatives see them.Many of the critics complaining about the Vikings acknowledge the existence of male cheerleaders. What sets them off is how these male cheerleaders dance. They don't like that these men "dance like women," because to them, women are meant to be objectified."I think people feel discomfited by this, not because it's male cheerleaders, those are as old as cheerleading," Fox News columnist David Marcus stated on X. "But they had a male role to play, like the man in pairs skating. This comes off as a man doing the woman's part."To Marcus, "the woman's part" is there to titillate men."The reason this is 'new' is because male cheerleaders have always played a role of strength and SUPPORT of women, which aligns with gender norms," X user Jason Howerton says. "Having men gyrating & dancing like women is clearly cultural subversion."For Howerton, gender norms dictate that men should be strong and that women should be gyrating."Cheerleaders are supposed to be attractive women because football is a man's sport," podcaster Eric Matheny wrote on X. "This isn't going to go over well with a predominantly straight male audience."In this world view, cheerleaders are there for straight men, and no one else. And it's not enough for cheerleaders to be women; they also have to turn men on. These men like cheerleading because it allows them to objectify women in public and with a crowd backing them. When they say like a woman, what they mean is "like a sex object."For these people, there's a natural order when it comes to men and women. Each gender has its roles, and "sex object" is a woman's role. They see football games as a bastion of traditional gender roles where men can show off their strength and women can show off their bodies.This regressive attitude comes at a time when the NFL is just starting to reckon with its mistreatment of cheerleaders. For decades, there have been horror stories about sexual harassment, coercion, low pay, and strict rules controlling cheerleaders' lives off the field. Only recently have cheerleaders been able to fight back.In 2008, Washington cheerleaders were filming the making-of video for their cheerleader swimsuit calendar when employees secretly filmed the women while topless. This footage was made into a video referred to as "the good bits" by the team's then-senior vice president, Larry Michael. That video was given to the team's owner, Dan Snyder.Five years later, the Washington team was again in hot water when several cheerleaders said they were pressured to pose topless and serve as escorts for team sponsors during a trip to Costa Rica.In 2022, the Dallas Cowboys paid $2.4 million to several cheerleaders who had accused the team's former senior vice president for public relations and communications of filming them while they were in their dressing room during the 2015 season.A 2022 report from the House Oversight Committee said that the NFL "has failed to take key steps to protect employees or prevent workplace misconduct from occurring across the League."It adds that there is an "urgent need for workplace reforms to prevent and address toxic work environments, strengthen protections for women in the workplace, and restrict the use of non-disclosure agreements that prevent the disclosure of unlawful employment practices, including sexual harassment."But just when NFL cheerleaders were starting to make progress against toxic and abusive workplaces, conservatives want to push them back into the past. Cheerleaders shouldn't exist for people's sexual gratification. They are professional gymnasts, athletes, and dancers. Their job should be to get the crowd excited for a sports team, not to get them aroused.That's not how the people whining see it. They miss when drunk fans could grope cheerleaders without repercussions. They want to bring back the good ol' days when cheerleaders had no purpose other than to turn men on.The people who complain about male cheerleaders "dancing like a woman" are some of the same people complaining about trans children playing sports under the guise of "protecting girls and women's sports." This latest outrage is another piece of evidence showing that it's just a cover for their real agenda: enforcing strict control over people's lives.They don't care about the safety or happiness of women. It was never about that.If conservatives wanted to protect women's sports, they'd call out every person who objectifies cheerleaders. They'd advocate for cheerleading to be respected as a sport and cheerleaders to be respected as athletes and human beings.Instead, they're trying to force women back into the role of sexual servants for men. They don't want to protect women; they want to put them in their place.Mey Rude is a staff writer for Out.Voices is dedicated to featuring a wide range of inspiring personal stories and impactful opinions from the LGBTQ+ community and its allies. Visit out.com/submit to learn more about submission guidelines. We welcome your thoughts and feedback on any of our stories. Email us at voices@equalpride.com. Views expressed in Voices stories are those of the guest writers, columnists, and editors, and do not directly represent the views of Out or our parent company, equalpride.