Kagan once played softball, which means she's gay?

Ever since President Obama nominated Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, questions about her sexuality have figured into the overall news narrative. Recently, news sources have begun showing a picture of Kagan playing softball, and suggesting that her affiliation with the sport shows that she is indeed lesbian. (Pat Buchanan, the MSNBC pundit, provided particularly insightful commentary, stating that playing softball is a lesbian “signal,” just like “two guys sunbathing together” brings the “immediate implication that they’re gay.”) Aside from the problematic ideology that an out lesbian is somehow a mark in the negative column in evaluating this potential justice, the implication draws from an age-old stereotype about female athletes. News media own the responsibility of ethically informing the public so that we may become better citizens equipped to make educated decisions. What Kagan’s short-lived amateur softball career has to do with her potential as a Supreme Court justice is unclear. What is clear, however, is the persistent stigmatization of women who do not conform to traditional notions of femininity, including those who have the gall to use their muscles and swing for the fences on a softball field.

--Erin Whiteside

Gays and sports: The real problem

Sports journalists at the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association national conference discussed gays and sports during a panel session yesterday.
Most interesting to me was not the back-and-forth about whether journalists should ask athletes to disclose their sexuality or whether gay athletes should be "outed." Instead, it was the assessment of panelists that performances of "tough-guy" masculinity are central to sports, despite sexuality. Ted Rybka, who leads GLAAD's efforts to reach out to the athletic community, said, “With sports in general, it’s all about masculinity…It’s about you not being ‘man enough’.”
Bill Konigsberg, formerly with ESPN but now with the AP, said he thought that the climate for gay men in sports journalism was better than it had ever been. He added:
“The misogyny is almost stronger than the homophobia everywhere I’ve worked.”
In that light, the absence of a lesbian voice on the panel was regrettable. The discussion did briefly turn to women's sports, specifically to the WNBA. ESPN's LZ Granderson said he believed that women may be "the main culprit" in the league's stagnation. “Until it’s properly supported by women” it won’t move to the next level, he said.
Granderson's comments reinforce the general misunderstanding that interest in sports exists in a vacuum. The truth is that the socialization of women and men turn them away from watching women's sports in a myriad of ways.
This same gender socialization that keeps the WNBA from real breakout status, though, is the same socialization that will continue to force sexual minorities in sports to be marginalized and stigmatized.