@GallantKumquat
It's not unusual for lawyers arguing a point to rely on a case for more than it actually said. They often do that (and I mean often) when that's the most support they can find for their point. That does not change what Skrmetti actually held. IMO it more shows that there is not yet any actual ruling to support for their point.
I'm glad that we mostly agree.
For those reading, the case itself lets you see how the votes on the issue broke down. After a case is argued, various judges draft opinions and try to get a majority of judges to agree with their opinion. The majority opinion is the opinion of the Court. It will be written by a justice (or judge for the Circuit Courts) who voted with the majority. Both the concurring opinions and the dissenting opinions were written by other judges, generally to try to persuade the other judges to adopt their view.
Even if the concurring opinion or dissenting opinion does not get a majority of votes, it can persuade the other justices/judges, e.g., by changing the rationale for the majority ruling, by expanding or narrowing its holding, by bringing up points that need to be addressed in the majority opinion, etc. Often, the draft of the majority opinion is changed to accommodate support for (or opposition to) points in the other circulating opinions. Same for the concurring and dissenting opinions being circulated. Occasionally, one of the concurring or dissenting opinions being circulated gains enough support to become the majority opinion.
The published opinion will tell you which justices/judges supported each concurring or dissenting opinion. That is often useful for predicting how they will vote in future cases. E.g., in Skrmetti, only Barrett and Thomas supported her view that gender is not a suspect class. [ JUSTICE BARRETT , with whom JUSTICE THOMAS joins,concurring.
Because the Court concludes that Tennessee’s Senate Bill
1 does not classify on the basis of transgender status, it does
not resolve whether transgender status constitutes a sus-
pect class. Ante, at 16–18; see Geduldig v. Aiello, 417 U. S.
484, 496 (1974). I write separately to explain why, in my
view, it does not.]
So in the case before the SCOTUS now, those two will almost certainly support "no suspect class/use rational basis standard."
No other justices agreed with Justice Alito's concurrence [ I agree with much of the discussion in
Part II–A–1, which holds that Tennessee’s Senate Bill 1 (SB1) does not classify on the basis of “sex,” but I set out my own analysis of this issue in Part I of this opinion. I do not join Part II–A–2 of the opinion of the Court, which concludes that SB1 does not classify on the basis of “transgender status.” There is a strong argument that SB1 does classify on that ground, but I find it unnecessary to
decide that question. I would assume for the sake of argument that the law classifies based on transgender status, but I would nevertheless sustain the law because such a classification does not warrant heightened scrutiny. I also
do not join Part II–A–3 of the Court’s opinion because I do not believe that the reasoning employed in Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U. S. 644 (2020), is applicable when determining whether a law classifies based on sex for Equal Protection Clause purposes]
So Alito also believes that transgender status does not warrant heightened scrutiny but no one else agrees with his reasoning.
BTW, you can see from the opinion that the concurring opinions are only the individual opinions of the justice who wrote or joined them bc at the top of each page of the concurrence, it says, e.g., "Opinion of ALITO, J.", not the opinion of the Court. At the top of each page of Robert's majority opinion, it says "opinion of the Court". They tell you on every page whether the part you're reading is the opinion of the Court or the opinion of the individual justice.
The dissenters are more unified. It says at the top of Sotomayer's dissent
"JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE JACKSON joins,
and with whom JUSTICE KAGAN joins as to all but Part V,
dissenting"