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Page Number: 24

20 

BOSTOCK v. CLAYTON COUNTY 

Opinion of the Court 

they  may  manifest  themselves  or  whatever  other  labels 
might attach to them. 

The  employers  try  the  same  point  another  way.    Since 
1964,  they  observe,  Congress  has  considered  several  pro-
posals  to  add  sexual  orientation  to  Title  VII’s  list  of  pro-
tected characteristics, but no such amendment has become 
law.  Meanwhile, Congress has enacted other statutes ad-
dressing  other  topics  that  do  discuss  sexual  orientation. 
This  postenactment  legislative  history,  they  urge,  should 
tell us something.  Cf. post, at 2, 42–43 (ALITO, J., dissent-
ing); post, at 4, 15–16 (KAVANAUGH, J., dissenting). 

But what?  There’s no authoritative evidence explaining
why later Congresses adopted other laws referencing sex-
ual orientation but didn’t amend this one.  Maybe some in
the  later  legislatures  understood  the  impact  Title  VII’s
broad  language  already  promised  for  cases  like  ours  and
didn’t think a revision needed.  Maybe others knew about 
its impact but hoped no one else would notice.  Maybe still
others, occupied by other concerns, didn’t consider the issue 
at all.  All we can know for certain is that speculation about 
why a later Congress declined to adopt new legislation of-
fers a “particularly dangerous” basis on which to rest an in-
terpretation of an existing law a different and earlier Con-
gress did adopt.  Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation v. 
LTV Corp., 496 U. S. 633, 650 (1990); see also United States 
v. Wells, 519 U. S. 482, 496 (1997); Sullivan v. Finkelstein, 
496  U. S.  617,  632  (1990)  (Scalia,  J.,  concurring)  (“Argu-
ments based on subsequent legislative history . . .  should 
not be taken seriously, not even in a footnote”). 

That leaves the employers to seek a different sort of ex-
ception.  Maybe  the  traditional  and  simple  but-for  causa-
tion test should apply in all other Title VII cases, but it just 
doesn’t work when it comes to cases involving homosexual
and transgender employees.  The test is too blunt to capture 
the nuances here.  The employers illustrate their concern 
with  an  example.  When  we  apply  the  simple  test  to  Mr.