Quick Hit: the is-she-or-isn’t-she debate

Don’t miss Ryan Thoreson’s astute and rabble rousing summary of why the media coverage of Elena Kagan‘s sexuality has really been so disappointing. An excerpt:

It doesn’t take a queer theorist to point out that the relationships you have in college don’t indelibly and permanently mark your sexual orientation, nor should it take a queer theorist to suggest that some people might have satisfying relationships with men and women — or not find those terms useful at all. What’s troubling about the treatment of Kagan’s nomination isn’t just the homophobic and anti-feminist bent of a lot of it, but how it makes our static, unimaginative views on sexuality so glaringly apparent. The ubiquity of the is-she-or-isn’t-she debate is a depressing indication of how narrowly we conceptualize gender and sexuality after all the visibility of the LGBT movement, revealing an obsession with categories without a hint of was-she-or-has-she-ever-been.