Chapter 6 concludes that discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression is sex discrimination under Title VII. In Etsitty v. Utah Transit Authority, the Tenth Circuit held that a bus company did not violate Title VII when it fired a transgender driver for using women’s restrooms along her route. The court concluded that discrimination based on transgender status does not violate Title VII’s prohibition of discrimination “because of sex,” and that the plaintiff was fired because of bathroom use, not discrimination. The rewritten opinion reverses course: the employer’s behavior violated both Title VII and the Equal Protection Clause. Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College held that discrimination based on sexual orientation is illegal sex discrimination. The rewritten opinion arrives at the same conclusion, but offers a more humanistic lens through which to view the legal question posed. The rewritten opinion relies on several legal theories to support its conclusion, including but-for causation, sex stereotyping, sex-plus, associational (or relationship) discrimination, and a unique use of the motivating factor provision in Title VII.

Chapter 2 demonstrates how the US Supreme Court could have used the feminist technique of storytelling by rewriting Desert Palace v. Costa from the perspective of the plaintiff, who received a jury verdict in her favor in the district court. The feminist judgment corrects the Supreme Court’s willingness to allow the defendant to write the plaintiff’s story by detailing the egregious facts in the case that shed light on the gendered treatment she suffered – treatment that included repeated severely hostile behaviors among her coworkers and differential treatment by her supervisors. The rewritten opinion gives the reader a significantly different view of the case from that offered by the original opinion. The rewritten opinion demonstrates that the feminist method of storytelling illuminates the ways in which the facts occurred in the real world, and in doing so creates a counterbalance to the supposedly “neutral” and “objective” view that the Court originally presented.