Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf
Page Number: 34

30 

BOSTOCK v. CLAYTON COUNTY 

Opinion of the Court 

990 (CADC 1977).  While to the modern eye each of these 
examples may seem “plainly [to] constitut[e] discrimination
because of biological sex,” post, at 38 (ALITO, J., dissenting),
all were hotly contested for years following Title VII’s en-
actment.  And as with the discrimination we consider today,
many federal judges long accepted interpretations of Title 
VII  that  excluded  these  situations.    Cf.  post,  at  21–22 
(KAVANAUGH,  J.,  dissenting)  (highlighting  that  certain 
lower courts have rejected Title VII claims based on homo-
sexuality  and  transgender  status).    Would  the  employers
have  us  undo  every  one  of  these  unexpected  applications 
too? 

The  weighty  implications  of  the  employers’  argument 
from expectations also reveal why they cannot hide behind
the no-elephants-in-mouseholes canon.  That canon recog-
nizes that Congress “does not alter the fundamental details 
of  a  regulatory  scheme  in  vague  terms  or  ancillary  provi-
sions.”  Whitman  v.  American  Trucking  Assns.,  Inc.,  531 
U. S.  457,  468  (2001).  But  it  has  no  relevance  here.    We 
can’t deny that today’s holding—that employers are prohib-
ited from firing employees on the basis of homosexuality or
transgender  status—is  an  elephant.    But  where’s  the 
mousehole?  Title VII’s prohibition of sex discrimination in
employment is a major piece of federal civil rights legisla-
tion.  It is written in starkly broad terms.  It has repeatedly 
produced  unexpected  applications,  at  least  in  the  view  of
those on the receiving end of them.  Congress’s key drafting
choices—to focus on discrimination against individuals and 
not  merely  between  groups  and  to  hold  employers  liable 
whenever sex is a but-for cause of the plaintiff ’s injuries—
virtually  guaranteed  that  unexpected  applications  would 
emerge  over  time.  This  elephant  has  never  hidden  in  a
mousehole; it has been standing before us all along. 

With  that,  the  employers  are  left  to  abandon  their  con-
cern for expected applications and fall back to the last line