Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf
Page Number: 51.0

14 

BOSTOCK v. CLAYTON COUNTY 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

An additional argument made in passing also fights the
text of Title VII and the policy it reflects.  The Court pro-
claims that “[a]n individual’s homosexuality or transgender 
status is not relevant to employment decisions.”  Ante, at 9. 
That is the policy view of many people in 2020, and perhaps 
Congress would have amended Title VII to implement it if 
this Court  had not intervened.  But that is not the policy
embodied in Title VII in its current form.  Title VII prohib-
its discrimination based on five specified grounds, and nei-
ther sexual orientation nor gender identity is on the list.  As 
long as an employer does not discriminate based on one of 
the listed grounds, the employer is free to decide for itself
which characteristics are “relevant to [its] employment de-
cisions.”  Ibid.  By proclaiming that sexual orientation and 
gender identity are “not relevant to employment decisions,” 
the  Court  updates  Title  VII  to  reflect  what  it  regards  as 
2020 values. 

The Court’s remaining argument is based on a hypothet-
ical that the Court finds instructive.  In this hypothetical, 
an employer has two employees who are “attracted to men,” 
and “to the employer’s mind” the two employees are “mate-
rially identical” except that one is a man and the other is a 
woman.  Ante, at 9 (emphasis added).  The Court reasons 
that if the employer fires the man but not the woman, the
employer  is  necessarily  motivated  by  the  man’s  biological 
sex.  Ante, at 9–10.  After all, if two employees are identical
in every respect but sex, and the employer fires only one, 
what other reason could there be? 

The problem with this argument is that the Court loads
the dice.  That is so because in the mind of an employer who
does  not  want  to  employ  individuals  who  are  attracted  to 

—————— 
namely,  “pregnancy,  childbirth,  [and]  related  medical  conditions.”    42 
U. S. C.  §2000e(k).    This  definition  should  inform  the  meaning  of  “be-
cause of sex” in Title VII more generally.  Unlike pregnancy, neither sex-
ual  orientation  nor  gender  identity  is  biologically  linked  to  women  or 
men.