26
UNITED STATES v. SKRMETTI
SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
espouse support for transgender individuals. 13
Transgender persons, moreover, have a defining charac- teristic (incongruence between sex and gender identity) that plainly “bears no relation to [the individual’s] ability to perform or contribute to society.”” Cleburne, 473 U. S., at 441. As a group, the class is no more “large, diverse, and amorphous,”” ante, at 4 (opinion of BARRETT, J.); ante, at 14 (ALITO, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment), than most races or ethnic groups, many of which similarly include individuals with “a huge variety”” of identities and experiences, ante, at 5 (opinion of BARRETT, J.). (Not all racial, ethnic, or religious minorities, for example, “carry an obvious badge’ of their membership in the disadvan- taged class.” Cf. ante, at 16 (opinion of ALITO, J.).) 14 As evidenced by the recent rise in discriminatory state and fed- eral policies and the fact that transgender people “are un- derrepresented in every branch of government,” Grimm, 972 F. 3d, at 611–613, moreover, the class lacks the politi- cal power to vindicate its interests before the very legisla- tures and executive agents actively singling them out for discriminatory treatment. See Lyng v. Castillo, 477 U. S. 635, 638 (1986). In refusing to say as much, the Court today renders transgender Americans doubly vulnerable to state- sanctioned discrimination.¹
13 See Order, United States v. Shilling, No. 24A1030 (2025); see also Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Bi- ological Truth to the Federal Government, Exec. Order No. 14168, 90 Fed. Reg. 8615 (2025).
14 See, e.g., L. Noe-Bustamante, A. Gonzalez-Barrera, K. Edwards, L. Mora, & M. Hugo Lopez, Measuring the Racial Identity of Latinos, Pew Research Center, https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnic-
ity/2021/11/04/measuring-the-racial-identity-of-latinos/
(highlighting
the range of self-reported skin color among people who identify as La- tino).
15 Of course, regardless of whether transgender persons constitute a suspect class, courts must strike down any law that reflects the kind of “irrational prejudice” that this Court has recognized as an illegitimate
