Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf
Page Number: 85.0

48 

BOSTOCK v. CLAYTON COUNTY 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

The logic of the Court’s decision could even affect profes-
sional sports.  Under the Court’s holding that Title VII pro-
hibits  employment  discrimination  because  of  transgender 
status, an athlete who has the physique of a man but iden-
tifies as a woman could claim the right to play on a women’s
professional sports team.  The owners of the team might try
to claim that biological sex is a bona fide occupational qual-
ification  (BFOQ)  under  42  U. S. C.  §2000e–2(e),  but  the 
BFOQ exception has been read very narrowly.  See Dothard 
v. Rawlinson, 433 U. S. 321, 334 (1977). 
  Housing.  The Court’s decision may lead to Title IX cases 
against  any  college  that  resists  assigning  students  of  the
opposite biological sex as roommates.  A provision of Title
IX, 20 U. S. C. §1686, allows schools to maintain “separate 
living facilities for the different sexes,” but it may be argued 
that a student’s “sex” is the gender with which the student 
identifies.50  Similar claims may be brought under the Fair
Housing Act.  See 42 U. S. C. §3604. 

Employment by religious organizations.  Briefs filed by a 
wide  range  of  religious  groups––Christian,  Jewish,  and
Muslim––express  deep  concern  that  the  position  now
adopted by the Court “will trigger open conflict with faith- 

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year before, the student won the women’s competition by over a second 
and a half––a time that had garnered tenth place in the men’s conference 
meet just three years before.”  Id., at 15. 

A transgender male—i.e., a biological female who was in the process of 
transitioning  to  male  and  actively  taking  testosterone  injections––won
the  Texas  girls’  state  championship  in  high  school  wrestling  in  2017. 
Babb, Transgender Issue Hits Mat in Texas, Washington Post, Feb. 26, 
2017, p. A1, col. 1. 

50 Indeed, the 2016 advisory letter issued by the Department of Justice 
took  the  position  that  under  Title  IX  schools  “must  allow  transgender 
students to access housing consistent with their gender identity.”  Dear 
Colleague Letter 4.