Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf
Page Number: 157.0

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

13 

KAVANAUGH, J., dissenting 

the  other—as  the  majority  opinion  does—misapprehends
common  language,  human  psychology,  and  real  life.   See 
Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College of Ind., 853 F. 3d 339, 
363 (CA7 2017) (Sykes, J., dissenting).

It also rewrites history.  Seneca Falls was not Stonewall. 
The women’s rights movement was not (and is not) the gay 
rights movement, although many people obviously support 
or participate in both.  So to think that sexual orientation 
discrimination is just a form of sex discrimination is not just 
a mistake of language and psychology, but also a mistake of 
history and sociology.

Importantly,  an  overwhelming  body  of  federal  law  re-
flects  and  reinforces  the  ordinary  meaning  and  demon-
strates  that  sexual  orientation  discrimination  is  distinct 
from, and not a form of, sex discrimination.  Since enacting
Title VII in 1964, Congress has never treated sexual orien-
tation discrimination the same as, or as a form of, sex dis-
crimination.  Instead, Congress has consistently treated sex 
discrimination and sexual orientation discrimination as le-
gally distinct categories of discrimination. 

Many  federal  statutes  prohibit  sex  discrimination,  and 
many federal statutes also prohibit sexual orientation dis-
crimination.  But  those  sexual  orientation  statutes  ex-
pressly prohibit sexual orientation discrimination in addi-
tion  to  expressly  prohibiting  sex  discrimination.  Every 
single one.  To this day, Congress has never defined sex dis-
crimination  to  encompass  sexual  orientation  discrimina-
tion.  Instead, when Congress wants to prohibit sexual ori-
entation  discrimination  in  addition  to  sex  discrimination, 
Congress explicitly refers to sexual orientation discrimina-
tion.5 

—————— 

5 See 18 U. S. C. §249(a)(2)(A) (criminalizing violence because of “gen-
der, sexual orientation”); 20 U. S. C. §1092(f )(1)(F)(ii) (requiring funding 
recipients to collect statistics on crimes motivated by the victim’s “gen-
der,  . . .  sexual  orientation”);  34  U. S. C.  §12291(b)(13)(A)  (prohibiting
discrimination  on  the  basis  of  “sex,  . . .  sexual  orientation”);  §30501(1)