Section 7

Citation: Section 7
Parent Document: Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. 644 (2020)
Jurisdiction: United States (federal)
Effective Date: 2020-06-15
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4760997/bostock-v-clayton-county/ ↗

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were, the meaning of the adoption of the prohibition of sex
discrimination is clear. It was no accident. It grew out of
“a long history of women’s rights advocacy that had increas-
ingly been gaining mainstream recognition and ac-
ceptance,” and it marked a landmark achievement in the
path toward fully equal rights for women. Id., at 140. “Dis-
crimination against gay women and men, by contrast, was
not on the table for public debate . . . [i]n those dark, pre-
Stonewall days.” Ibid.
  For those who regard congressional intent as the touch-
stone of statutory interpretation, the message of Title VII’s
legislative history cannot be missed.
                                C
   Post-enactment events only clarify what was apparent
when Title VII was enacted. As noted, bills to add “sexual
orientation” to Title VII’s list of prohibited grounds were in-
troduced in every Congress beginning in 1975, see supra, at
2, and two such bills were before Congress in 199137 when
it made major changes in Title VII. At that time, the three
Courts of Appeals to reach the issue had held that Title VII
does not prohibit discrimination because of sexual orienta-
tion,38 two other Circuits had endorsed that interpretation
in dicta,39 and no Court of Appeals had held otherwise. Sim-
ilarly, the three Circuits to address the application of Title
VII to transgender persons had all rejected the argument

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