After a long morning of practicing chants and stunts at cheer camp, junior Isak Taylor comes back from a quick water break to find a giant poster that reads, “HAPPY SWEET SIXTEEN, ISAK.” The whole camp gathers, and a few hundred voices join together to sing him “Happy Birthday,” loudly and discordantly and joyfully. Teammates drop by to sign the poster, and by the time the day ends, it’s full of names and well-wishes. As he laughs and celebrates with girls he thinks of like sisters, something clicks in place, an old ache settling inside him.

He’s home.

Taylor began cheering in April of 2023, though the seeds had been sown a long time before.

“I’ve always been a performer,” Taylor said. “I used to do dance when I was younger. Plus, I had a lot of friends on the team and Caleb, who was the boy cheerleader before me, we were friends. When I told him that I was interested, he was really happy. I was going to join last year but I didn’t have the courage to do so. But when this year came along, I was just [going] do it. It was an impulse decision that I do not regret.”

In the beginning, it wasn’t easy. Though ideas surrounding gender have become much more flexible in recent years, there is still a stigma around the traditional norms being broken — like a boy doing cheer.

“When I first started, I struggled because I didn’t know if people were gonna look at me any differently,” Taylor said. “I do think I’ve gotten a lot of backlash from people because they don’t like it. It really doesn’t get to me now because I’m doing what I enjoy and I’m not doing anything to hurt nobody. It’s also helped other people see the different side of me that I really want people to see.”

Now, Taylor’s gender doesn’t play into his relationship with cheer at all — the sport feels natural.

“Being a boy doing cheer really doesn’t mean anything big to me,” Taylor said. “Most people think being a boy doing cheer and being a girl doing cheer are two different things, but cheering is the same to me. I chant, I do stunts. I just cheer.”

Taylor also faced internal struggles when adapting to the intensive environment that defines cheer.

“At first, [Isak] was just really hard on himself,” cheer coach Merri Cross said. “He came in really only knowing what he saw being a student and there’s a lot more to cheering than just the chants on the sideline.”

Still, even in the beginning, Taylor’s passion for cheer and desire to learn was as clear as day.

“Isak has incredible energy,” Cross said. “He is really fun to be around. He’s really driven. He has a lot of ambition and I think that he’s really found what he wants to have, that he wants cheer as part of his future. He has this million watt smile that you can’t miss.”

For Taylor, cheer is not only about athleticism, but also about creativity and beauty.

“I think [cheer is] both an art and a sport,” Taylor said. “Like dance, it’s a sport, because there’s so much athleticism that goes into it. But it’s also like the art of cheer. You’re creating something, whether that’s a chant, a stunt [or] a dance. Cheer is also an art, because art to me is creating something.”

Among his teammates, Taylor has found a community of friends and a place to learn.

“Caleb was one of my biggest role models because he was the boy [cheerleader] before me and I think the only boy ever before him,” Taylor said. “Our seniors now are also big role models for me. To see how far they’ve come and just how bright their aura is, whenever I see it I think about how I want to be that when I’m a senior.”

His teammates have seen Taylor grow and also changed their perceptions of him in the process. 

“I was really shy around him at first because he was popular, friends with everyone,” junior Kiyla Ray said. “But then I got closer to him, and I saw how he treated people, and how kind he was, and he really grew into himself around the team.”

His coaches have also been able to watch him step out of his shell and into his skills.

“He’s worked really hard to set himself on a new path,” Cross said. “I’m really proud of him. He’s struggled a bit with facing stigma for being just a guy in cheer. It took Isak time to feel confident in who he is and embrace who he is. That’s hard for any high school kid, right? Everybody is growing at different speeds and accepting themselves in different ways. But I told him, ‘You’re an amazing person, and once you believe that and you step into that, it really doesn’t matter what those folks who are giving you trouble for being a guy are saying.’”

Ultimately, Taylor has grown into himself through cheer and the surrounding environment.

“We’re like a family,” Taylor said. “Now I feel like I’m free to do whatever and be who I am because now people have seen who I am and still accepted me.”