The opinion is just dreadful, not only in its slavish lip-service to a stunted form of textualism, but in its logic as well. Gorsuch loads the dice by using "prefers men" as the trait that would get a man fired but not a woman. Alito demolished that argument by using the same test, but choosing "prefers the opposite sex" as the tested trait. Both describe the specific trait exhibited, but the latter is clearly more germane to the case.

Consider "uncovers one's breasts" as a tested behavior for lifeguards to see if we really think Gorsuch's approach works. Or change "sex" to "age" and test "prefers sixteen-year-old-girls" to the treatment of males aged sixteen and sixty under the ADEA, which tracks Title VII's proscriptions verbatim.

The only jurisprudentially sound defense of the result in this case is the one that says "sex" includes "sexuality," at least within bounds accepted by the community. (Pedophilia and bestiality are arguably "sexualities," but they are not "sex" under the law) I can see how that analysis was a bridge too far for Gorsuch, but it is where America is headed, so the bridge must eventually go there.

The good news is that some bad opinions nevertheless create good law. I don't think much of the opinion in Roe v. Wade - it was no Griswold v. Connecticut, but, then, there was no John Harlan on the Roe court - but it has remained the law and Justice Roberts, at least, feels constrained to let it stand. Maybe Bostock will fare as well. I do wish, though, that it had been better defended.