Bostock v. Clayton County

The Court held that Title VII's ban on sex discrimination protects gay and transgender employees.

Overview

Gerald Bostock was fired for joining a gay softball league, and other plaintiffs were fired for being transgender. Justice Gorsuch, for a 6-3 majority, applied textualism: discrimination based on homosexuality or transgender status necessarily entails discrimination based on sex, since changing the employee's sex would change the outcome, so Title VII prohibits it. The decision extended federal workplace protections to millions of gay and transgender employees nationwide and exemplified textualist methodology producing expansive outcomes, with ripple effects into education, health care, and housing law.