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Page Number: 18

14 

BOSTOCK v. CLAYTON COUNTY 

Opinion of the Court 

held it was immaterial that members of the same sex as the 
victim committed the alleged discrimination.  Nor did the 
Court concern itself with whether men as a group were sub-
ject to discrimination or whether something in addition to
sex  contributed  to  the  discrimination,  like  the  plaintiff ’s
“[A]ssuredly,”  the  case 
conduct  or  personal  attributes. 
didn’t  involve  “the  principal  evil  Congress  was  concerned 
with when it enacted Title VII.”  Id., at 79.  But, the Court 
unanimously explained, it is “the provisions of our laws ra-
ther than the principal concerns of our legislators by which
we are governed.”  Ibid.  Because the plaintiff alleged that
the  harassment  would  not  have  taken  place  but  for  his 
sex—that is, the plaintiff would not have suffered similar 
treatment if he were female—a triable Title VII claim ex-
isted. 

The lessons these cases hold for ours are by now familiar. 
First, it’s irrelevant what an employer might call its dis-
criminatory practice, how others might label it, or what else
might motivate it.  In Manhart, the employer called its rule
requiring women to pay more into the pension fund a “life 
expectancy” adjustment necessary to achieve sex equality. 
In Phillips, the employer could have accurately spoken of
its policy as one based on “motherhood.”  In much the same 
way, today’s employers might describe their actions as mo-
tivated  by  their  employees’  homosexuality  or  transgender 
status.  But just as labels and additional intentions or mo-
tivations didn’t make a difference in Manhart or Phillips, 
they  cannot  make  a  difference  here.  When  an  employer 
fires an employee for being homosexual or transgender, it 
necessarily and intentionally discriminates against that in-
dividual in part because of sex.  And that is all Title VII has 
ever demanded to establish liability. 

Second, the plaintiff ’s sex need not be the sole or primary 
cause of the employer’s adverse action.  In Phillips, Man-
hart, and Oncale, the defendant easily could have pointed 
to  some  other,  nonprotected  trait  and  insisted  it  was  the