Specter of a Lesbian Supreme Court Justice: Problems of Identity in Lesbian Legal Theorizing

Authors

Ruthann Robson, City University of New York School of Law

First Page

433

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The specter of a lesbian Supreme Court Justice raises an issue that has troubled lesbian and political theory, the issue of identity politics. Any invocation of identity, political or otherwise, provokes postmodernist apprehension, an apprehension that has been particularly potent in sexual identities. Also as a sexual identity, lesbian identity evokes other postmodernist-influenced issues. Particularly problematic are lesbian identity's unintelligibility until claimed or avowed and lesbian identity's uncertain classification as an identity status or a sexual act. This Article will interrogate the predicaments posed by identity politics, including postmodernist questionings of identity and the identity/ activity dichotomy, concluding with some opinions about the necessity for a lesbian Supreme Court Justice.

Recommended Citation

Ruthann Robson, Specter of a Lesbian Supreme Court Justice: Problems of Identity in Lesbian Legal Theorizing, 5 St. Thomas L. Rev. 433 (1993).
Available at: https://scholarship.stu.edu/stlr/vol5/iss2/5