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Page Number: 55

18 

BOSTOCK v. CLAYTON COUNTY 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

by  or  in  support  of  the  employees.   The  Court  apparently
finds these arguments unpersuasive, and so do I, but for the 
sake of completeness, I will address them briefly. 

1 
One argument, which relies on our decision in Price Wa-
terhouse  v.  Hopkins,  490  U. S.  228  (1989)  (plurality  opin-
ion), is that discrimination because of sexual orientation or 
gender identity violates Title VII because it constitutes pro-
hibited discrimination on the basis of sex stereotypes.  See 
883 F. 3d, at 119–123; Hively, 853 F. 3d, at 346; 884 F. 3d 
560, 576–577 (CA6 2018).  The argument goes like this.  Ti-
tle VII prohibits discrimination based on stereotypes about 
the way men and women should behave; the belief that a 
person should be attracted only to persons of the opposite
sex and the belief that a person should identify with his or
her biological sex are examples of such stereotypes; there-
fore, discrimination on either of these grounds is unlawful.
This argument fails because it is based on a faulty prem-
ise, namely, that Title VII forbids discrimination based on 
sex stereotypes.  It does not.  It prohibits discrimination be-
cause of “sex,” and the two concepts are not the same.  See 
Price Waterhouse, 490 U. S., at 251.  That does not mean, 
however,  that  an  employee  or  applicant  for  employment 
cannot prevail by showing that a challenged decision was
based  on  a  sex  stereotype.  Such  evidence  is  relevant  to 
prove discrimination because of sex, and it may be convinc-
ing where the trait that is inconsistent with the stereotype
is one that would be tolerated and perhaps even valued in
a person of the opposite sex.  See ibid. 

Much of the plaintiff ’s evidence in Price Waterhouse was 
of this nature.  The plaintiff was a woman who was passed 
over for partnership at an accounting firm, and some of the 
adverse comments about her work appeared to criticize her 
for  being  forceful  and  insufficiently  “feminin[e].”    Id.,  at 
235–236.