Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf
Page Number: 44.0

Cite as:  590 U. S. ____ (2020) 

7 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College of Ind., 853 F. 3d 339, 
357 (CA7 2017) (Posner, J., concurring).  The Court seem-
ingly  has  the  same  opinion  about  our  colleagues  on  the 
Courts of Appeals, because until 2017, every single Court of 
Appeals to consider the question interpreted Title VII’s pro-
hibition against sex discrimination to mean discrimination
on the basis of biological sex.  See Part III–C, infra.  And for 
good measure, the Court’s conclusion that Title VII unam-
biguously reaches discrimination on the basis of sexual ori-
entation  and  gender  identity  necessarily  means  that  the 
EEOC failed to see the obvious for the first 48 years after
Title VII became law.7  Day in and day out, the Commission
enforced  Title  VII  but  did  not  grasp  what  discrimination
“because of . . . sex” unambiguously means.  See Part III–C, 
infra. 

The Court’s argument is not only arrogant, it is wrong.  It 
fails on its own terms.  “Sex,” “sexual orientation,” and “gen-
der identity” are different concepts, as the Court concedes. 
Ante, at 19 (“homosexuality and transgender status are dis-
tinct concepts from sex”).  And neither “sexual orientation” 
nor “gender identity” is tied to either of the two biological 
sexes.  See ante, at 10 (recognizing that “discrimination on
these bases” does not have “some disparate impact on one 
sex or another”).  Both men and women may be attracted to
members of the opposite sex, members of the same sex, or 
members of both sexes.8  And individuals who are born with 

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7 The EEOC first held that “discrimination against a transgender indi-
vidual because that person is transgender” violates Title VII in 2012 in 
Macy v. Holder, 2012 WL 1435995, *11 (Apr. 20, 2012), though it earlier
advanced  that  position  in  an  amicus  brief  in  Federal  District  Court  in 
2011, ibid., n. 16.  It did not hold that discrimination on the basis of sex-
ual orientation violated Title VII until 2015.  See Baldwin v. Foxx, 2015 
WL 4397641 (July 15, 2015). 

8 “Sexual  orientation  refers  to  a  person’s  erotic  response  tendency  or
sexual attractions, be they directed toward individuals of the same sex
(homosexual), the other sex (heterosexual), or both sexes (bisexual).” 1 B.