Eighty percent of 'conservatives' seem to consider Justice Gorsuch a traitor over Bostock, but I think he threaded the needle. As y'all say, that was about Employment, and it was about expectations pertaining to individual appearance and behavior, when those behaviors have little to do with the job itself, and all about allowing and expecting a female to do one thing, while requiring a male to do another and vice versa. And that, in Gorsuch's view, amounted to discrimination on account of the actual biological sex of the individual. And the court avoided, for the time, wrestling with the implications of gender as distinct from sex. As y'all say, that hasn't yet come to the Supreme Court, although a couple of circuit courts, in the bathroom and locker room cases, have taken the easy path of equating self-professed gender to 'sex'
But in my mind, that is standing Title VII on its head. Title VII is intended on the one hand to allow greater opportunities for females, but on the other hand, in order to do so, it deliberately created some protections, such as women's athletics. TItle VII presumes that 'sex' in a real difference, and in protecting some rights, it affirms that there is such a difference. But by reading too much into TItle IX, prohibiting 'stereotyping', we get to proposition that the main reason not to 'stereotype' is that there are no 'types' to begin with, and we can't tell the difference and shouldn't try to tell the difference.
With racial discrimination and Civil Rights, and with the recent Higher Ed cases, it comes down to, even if we think there are differences and reasons to act ('affirmatively' or otherwise) on the basis of those difference, we just must not go there, because we don't understand the differences well enough and never will. With 'sex', we damn well know the difference. With 'gender' , 'roles', and 'sexuality', maybe we don't understand. But with basic biology, the law shouldn't pretend to be dumb.
Eighty percent of 'conservatives' seem to consider Justice Gorsuch a traitor over Bostock, but I think he threaded the needle. As y'all say, that was about Employment, and it was about expectations pertaining to individual appearance and behavior, when those behaviors have little to do with the job itself, and all about allowing and expecting a female to do one thing, while requiring a male to do another and vice versa. And that, in Gorsuch's view, amounted to discrimination on account of the actual biological sex of the individual. And the court avoided, for the time, wrestling with the implications of gender as distinct from sex. As y'all say, that hasn't yet come to the Supreme Court, although a couple of circuit courts, in the bathroom and locker room cases, have taken the easy path of equating self-professed gender to 'sex'
But in my mind, that is standing Title VII on its head. Title VII is intended on the one hand to allow greater opportunities for females, but on the other hand, in order to do so, it deliberately created some protections, such as women's athletics. TItle VII presumes that 'sex' in a real difference, and in protecting some rights, it affirms that there is such a difference. But by reading too much into TItle IX, prohibiting 'stereotyping', we get to proposition that the main reason not to 'stereotype' is that there are no 'types' to begin with, and we can't tell the difference and shouldn't try to tell the difference.
With racial discrimination and Civil Rights, and with the recent Higher Ed cases, it comes down to, even if we think there are differences and reasons to act ('affirmatively' or otherwise) on the basis of those difference, we just must not go there, because we don't understand the differences well enough and never will. With 'sex', we damn well know the difference. With 'gender' , 'roles', and 'sexuality', maybe we don't understand. But with basic biology, the law shouldn't pretend to be dumb.