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Is Softball Gay?
By
John Del Signore
Published May 13, 2010
Modified May 13, 2010
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By
John Del Signore
Published May 13, 2010
Modified May 13, 2010
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It's been two days since the Wall Street Journal ran this front-page photo of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan playing softball, and people are still asking: Was the photo intended as innuendo suggesting Kagan is a lesbian? Some lesbian activists think so, and they've pegged the paper as homophobic. And the Journal isn't exactly bending over backwards to apologize. But a deeper question lingers: does softball = lesbian?
For answers, we turn to the NY Post, which is owned by the same guy who owns the Journal. Yet the Post's article actually confirms that most people associate softball with lesbians, so we're not sure what kind of perverse game they're playing here. "Unfortunately, I think that it's common for people to associate playing softball with being gay," one lesbian softball player from Manhattan tells the tabloid. "A lot of female athletes try to distance themselves from this stigma by wearing makeup or ribbons in their hair during games."
And in a second Post article, another softballer shares her experience as the "token straight gal" on an all-lesbian softball team. But don't get too excited fellas; her teammates "were so husky you might wonder whether they have a beard to shave." There was a lot of peer pressure to get her to switch hit—they even offered her a toaster—and she says the league actually had a rule that there couldn't be more than two straight players on the field at a time.
As for the Journal's use of the softball photo, one gay activist tells Politico, "It clearly is an allusion to her being gay. It's just too easy a punch line. The question from a journalistic perspective is whether it’s a descriptive representation of who she might be as a judge. Have you ever seen a picture of Clarence Thomas bowling?" We wish! In response, a Journal spokeswoman says, "If you turn the photo upside down, reverse the pixilation and simultaneously listen to Abbey Road backwards, while reading Roland Barthes, you will indeed find a very subtle hidden message."
Tagged
Elena Kagan
gay
lesbian
softball
supreme court
wall street journal
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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