The Hogette Community is Riven By Deceit

It's bad enough that backbiting and infighting exists within the Redskins organization, but it's doubly pathetic when it extends to a team's group of signature superfans in cross-dressing pig outfits. And so it is with the Hogettes, the band of porcine queens who have posed for cameras and rooted on the Redskins since 1983.

But the Hogettes are claiming that there is an impostor in their midst. They've put Redskins fans on high alert on team message boards that a someone who goes by the name of Stephanie Hogette at home games is not a bona fide member of their pack, even if he/she happens to look the part.

"It has come to our attention that an individual is representing himself to be a Hogette ... We have a very stringent set of rules and guidelines on who can become a Hogette and we monitor all of our members to insure that inappropriate action does not occur. We are very disturbed that someone would portray us in a negative manner and try to insure that this does not happen. However, from time to time we find it necessary to protect our Trademark and Copyright."

Intense stuff. So why the freak out? The supposed authentic and registered Hogettes have said on the message boards that Stephanie Hogette is inappropriately approaching and touching women in the parking lot, after offering them tickets to the game. He can be identified, they say, because he travels alone, which is not at all part of the Hogette creed.

The Washington City Paper looked into the Hogettes complaints about this lecherous newbie, though they found that Stephanie Hogette had in fact been pictured along with other Hogettes in press photos dated as far back as 1992. They even tracked down and spoke with Steve Rasnikov, the Brooklyn man behind the Stephanie Hogette mask. Rasnikov, while insisting, counter to the claims of other Hogettes, that he is no threat to women or children, broke out a couple lines of rap lyrics that he claims he uses on gamedays as his standard pick-up attempt.

So there appear to be some inconsistencies in what the majority of the Hogettes are saying about one of their own. At the same time, any guy who has eight bars of rap memorized to use on women can't be immediately dismissed as a possible creep.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.