WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court today ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which among other things bans employment discrimination on the basis of sex, extends the meaning of sex to include discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and transgender status. Heritage Foundation senior research fellow Ryan T. Anderson, who wrote about these cases in Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, offered the following response:
 

“The Supreme Court got it wrong. The word ‘sex’—still today and when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964—refers to our biological reality as male or female. It doesn’t refer to our sexual orientations or gender identities.

“In fact, Congress has repeatedly rejected legislation that would have added sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in federal law. The Supreme Court has simply legislated from the bench. This is pure judicial activism.

“Today’s ruling will have severe consequences for the privacy, safety, and equality of all Americans. The Court has rewritten our civil rights laws in a way that will undermine protections and equal rights of women and girls. It will also expose employers that are struggling to recover from the coronavirus pandemic to significant liabilities.

"Congress has not legislated such an outcome and it was wrong for the court to usurp lawmakers’ authority by imposing such an extreme policy on our nation.”