Before Smith, Clement, and Wilson, Circuit Judges. Jerry E. Smith, Circuit Judge: In Bostock v. Clayton County, 140 S. Ct. 1731, 1740–41, 1743 (2020), the Court determined that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids employers from discriminating against homosexuals and transgender per-sons, holding that such discrimination is “on the basis of sex.” Yet the Court punted on how religious liberties would be affected by its ruling and on the practical scope of the Title VII protections afforded by Bostock. Instead, the Court identified three potential avenues of legal recourse for religious and faith-based employers to shield themselves from any potential infringement of their religious rights. The avenues were Title VII’s religious exception, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–1(a), the ministerial exception of the First Amendment, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (“RFRA”), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000bb–2000bb-4. Bostock, 140 S. Ct. at 1754. In expanding discrimination “on the basis of sex” to include sexual orientation and concepts of gender identity such as transgenderism, the Bostock Court gave little guidance on how courts should apply those defenses and exemptions to religious employers. Addressing those issues of first impression, we affirm in large part, reverse in part, and remand. I. A. This is a suit by two Texas employers: Braidwood Management, Inc. (“Braidwood”), and Bear Creek Bible Church (“Bear Creek”). Braidwood is a management company that employs the workers of Hotze Health & Wellness Center, Hotze Vitamins, and Physicians Preference Pharmacy International LLC. Steven Hotze controls or owns the business entities and is the sole trustee and beneficiary of the trust that owns Braidwood. He is also the sole board member of Braidwood, serving as President, Secretary, and Treasurer. Braidwood has close to seventy employees who work at those entities. Hotze runs his corporations as “Christian” businesses—to-wit, he does not permit Braidwood to employ individuals who engage in behavior he considers sexually immoral or gender non-conforming, nor does he allow Braidwood to recognize homosexual marriage. To Hotze, that would “lend approval to homosexual behavior and make him complicit in sin.” Hotze also gives a nonreligious reason for refusing to recognize same-sex marriage: He will not allow Braidwood to recognize same-sex marriage because Texas continues to define marriage in heterosexual terms. Braidwood enforces a sex-specific dress code that disallows gender-non-conforming behavior. For example, “biological” men must wear professional attire, including a tie, if they have contact with customers. On the other hand, “biological” women may not wear a tie but may wear skirts, blouses, shoes with heels, and fingernail polish; men are forbidden from wearing those accessories, because “cross-dressing” is strictly forbidden. Hotze also does not countenance Braidwood employees’ using a restroom opposite their biological sex, regardless of any asserted gender identity. There is no record evidence of any job applicant or employee of Braidwood who has claimed he was discriminated against under these policies. Bear Creek is a nondenominational church whose bylaws state that “marriage is exclusively the union of one genetic male and one genetic female.” Accordingly, the church requires its employees to live according to its professed views on Biblical teaching. To that end, Bear Creek will not hire “practicing homosexuals, bisexuals, crossdressers, or transgender or gender non-conforming individuals.” The church asserts that any employee who enters into a homosexual marriage will be fired. Bear Creek, like Braidwood, requires each employee to use the restroom of his or her biological sex. Bear Creek has over fifteen employees, some of whom are non-ministerial, and so is subject to Title VII. Finally, Bear Creek also asserts that it is compelled to obey civil authorities per Biblical teachings. The church avers that it employed three persons who participated in conduct that it considered immoral and against its religious values, but Bear Creek never fired any of them based on its values. The first was a homosexual pedophile caught molesting children after he left Bear Creek’s employment. The second was dismissed for poor performance, and only after dismissal did Bear Creek discover the former employee was gay. The third engaged in cross-dressing but voluntarily left before Bear Creek took any employment action. Two of the three were pastors. The other was an administrative staff member. As per their closely held religious beliefs, Braidwood and Bear Creek assert that Title VII, as interpreted in the EEOC’s guidance and Bostock, prevents them from operating their places of employment in a way compatible with their Christian beliefs. These two plaintiffs have implicitly asserted that they will not alter or discontinue their employment practices. And all parties admitted in district court that numerous policies promulgated by plaintiffs (such as those about dress codes and segregating bathroom usage by solely biological sex) already clearly violate EEOC guidance. Both plain-tiffs also contend that they are focused on individuals’ behavior, not their asserted identity. Thus, for example, plaintiffs will hire homosexual employees who follow their code of sexual conduct. Although the EEOC has not brought an enforcement action against either party, it has not forsworn or disclaimed its willingness to bring an enforcement action against plaintiffs or other similarly-situated members of their proposed classes. B. Title VII forbids employers from “discriminat[ing] against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s . . . sex.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). The act also prohibits an employer from “limit[ing], segregat[ing], or classify[ing] . . . employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s . . . sex.” Id. § 2000e-2(a)(2). Either the EEOC or an affected employee (if the EEOC declines to act) is statutorily authorized to bring an enforcement action. Id. § 2000e-5(f)(1). The EEOC has not historically enforced Title VII’s prohibitions against religious entities’ engaging in potential discrimination against homosexuals and gender non-conformists. In one case, however, the EEOC brought an enforcement action against an avowedly Christian funeral home that prohibited a biological male from cross-dressing per the employee’s claimed gender identity as female.[1] Despite the employer’s sincere religious objections to gender-non-conforming conduct, see 884 F.3d at 567, the EEOC took the position that the employer’s RFRA defense was invalid, see id. at 585.[2] Still, most Title VII suits are brought by employees, not the EEOC. Moreover, the EEOC alleges that it counsels its investigators to respect employers’ religious liberties when deciding whether to bring an enforcement action; it has a guidance manual that instructs its investigators on addressing potential religious-discrimination issues. But even before Bostock, the EEOC interpreted statutory prohibitions on sex discrimination to include sexual orientation and gender identity.[3] The EEOC has stated that employers must treat homosexual marriage as the same as heterosexual marriage, and bathroom policy should be dictated by an employee’s asserted gender identity as distinguished from his or her biological sex.[4] The EEOC has no official guidance indicating any exemptions for employers that oppose homosexual or transgender behavior on religious grounds. Then in Bostock, 140 S. Ct. at 1740–41, the Court ruled that discrimination based on sexual orientation or transgender status is discrimination “because of sex” and thus falls within the ambit of Title VII. The Court explained that an employer that fires an employee for conduct or attributes it would permit in a member of the other biological sex makes sex the “but-for cause” of the termination, violating Title VII. Id. That said, an employer would not violate Title VII if it takes adverse employment action against an employee for conduct or attributes that it would tolerate in neither sex. Id. at 1742. Still, Bostock is delphic, with a nebulous description of the scope of its ruling. For example, the Court recognized that “[b]ecause RFRA operates as a kind of super statute, displacing the normal operation of other federal laws, it might supersede Title VII’s commands in appropriate cases.” Id. at 1754. But the Court declined to expound on what that might mean in practice or how the Court would “address bathrooms, locker rooms, or any-thing else of the kind.” Id. at 1753. C. Plaintiffs sued the EEOC and related governmental defendants (collectively, “the EEOC”) in 2018, seeking declaratory judgments. The district court stayed proceedings pending the resolution of Bostock, and post-Bostock, plaintiffs amended their complaint to seek a declaratory judgment on the following five statements (some capitalization altered): 1. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act compels exemptions to Bostock‘s interpretation of Title VII (“RFRA claim”); 2. The Free-Exercise Clause compels exemptions to Bostock‘s interpretation of Title VII (“free exercise claim”); 3. The First Amendment right of expressive association compels exemptions to Bostock‘s interpretation of Title VII (“expressive association claim”); 4. Title VII, as interpreted in Bostock, does not prohibit discrimination against bisexual employees (“bisexual orientation claim”); 5. Title VII, as interpreted in Bostock, does not prohibit employers from establishing sex-neutral rules of conduct that exclude practicing homosexuals and transgender people from employment (“sex-neutral rules of conduct claim”). In addition to bringing claims on behalf of themselves, plaintiffs moved to certify two classes: all employers that oppose homosexual or trans-gender behavior for sincere religious reasons and all employers that oppose homosexual or transgender behavior for religious or nonreligious reasons. All claims are asserted on behalf of the sincere-religious-objector class, but only claims 3–5 are asserted on behalf of the nonreligious-objector class. The EEOC moved for summary judgment based on standing, ripeness, and sovereign immunity.[5] It also moved for summary judgment on substantive grounds, averring that it did not violate plaintiffs’ religious rights and that Bostock prohibits the policies on which plaintiffs want declaratory relief. Plaintiffs similarly sought summary judgment on substantive grounds. D. The district court, in pertinent part, initially denied the EEOC’s motion to dismiss for want of jurisdiction,[6] ruling that plaintiffs had established a “credible fear” of EEOC enforcement, conferring Article III standing. The court separately held that plaintiffs’ claims were ripe because the issues presented were purely legal with no need for further factual development. The court held that waiting and withholding review would force plain-tiffs between Scylla and Charybdis: Violate either Title VII and EEOC guidance or violate their sincere religious beliefs. See Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. 452, 462 (1974). Next, the court modified the classes that plaintiffs moved to certify. First, the court certified a religious-business-type employers’ class for all of Braidwood’s claims.[7] Then the claims of Bear Creek were separated into a church-type employers’ class, which the court held was statutorily exempt from Title VII. The court declined to certify that class and entered judgment against Bear Creek.[8] Finally, the court accepted plaintiffs’ proposed class definition for an “All Opposing Employers Class,” defined as “every employer in the United States that opposes homosexual or transgender behavior for religious or nonreligious reasons.” That class was certified only for claims 4 and 5. On the merits, the court granted summary judgment in favor of the religious-business-type employer class for claims 1–3: The court ruled that the class was protected under RFRA and the First Amendment. For the RFRA claim, the court determined that Title VII substantially burdened the class members. Next, the court decided that the EEOC did not have a compelling interest in failing to provide a religious exemption to all class members. Moreover, the EEOC had not selected the least restrictive means to further any compelling interest. For the free exercise claim, the district court ruled that Title VII is not a generally applicable statute because it has individualized exemptions.[9] Thus, strict scrutiny applies. Next, relying on Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, 141 S. Ct. 1868 (2021), and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682 (2014), the court concluded that the EEOC had not shown a compelling interest in light of the exemption system, which undermined the EEOC’s contention that all discrimination had to be eliminated under Title VII. Again, in the alternative, Title VII was not sufficiently narrowly tailored. Relying on Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 530 U.S. 640 (2000), the district court ruled that the members of the religious-business-type-employers class engaged in expressive association and therefore had a right not to associate with persons engaging in homosexual or transgender conduct. Again, the court held that the EEOC had failed to show a compelling interest that would defeat the associational right. Additionally, the court determined, as a matter of law, that the sex-neutral policies of both classes pertaining to sexual conduct, dress codes, and bathrooms did not violate Title VII. Those policies applied equally to both sexes. On the other hand, the court granted summary judgment in the EEOC’s favor on the entirety of claim 4 regarding bisexual orientation and employer policies regulating sex-reassignment surgery and hormone treatment for claim 5.[10] The court then separately denied plaintiffs’ motion to alter or amend the final judgments in pertinent part. Both plaintiffs and the EEOC timely appealed. II. We review issues of Article III standing and ripeness de novo. Contender Farms, L.L.P. v. U.S. Dep’t of Agric., 779 F.3d 258, 264 (5th Cir. 2015). We consider a summary judgment de novo as well. Norman v. Apache Corp., 19 F.3d 1017, 1021 (5th Cir. 1994). We review de novo whether the district court applied the correct legal standard in its decision on class certification. Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Credit Suisse First Bos. (USA), Inc., 482 F.3d 372, 380 (5th Cir. 2007). But the decision to certify a class is reviewed for abuse of discretion. Pederson v. La. State Univ., 213 F.3d 858, 866 (5th Cir. 2000). “Where a district court premises its legal analysis on an erroneous understanding of governing law, it has abused its discretion.” Regents, 482 F.3d at 380. Where, as here, issues of both Article III jurisdiction and class certification are presented, we usually answer class-certification issues first, as they are “logically antecedent” to Article III justiciability concerns and often implicate statutory standing. Pederson, 213 F.3d at 866 n.5 (quoting Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp., 527 U.S. 815, 831 (1999)). The district court and the parties have chosen to address Article III standing concerns before discussing class certification. Because the class-certification issue is not outcome-determinative, we do the same. III. To begin, plaintiffs’ claims are justiciable. Despite the EEOC’s protestations that no one has brought a Title VII enforcement action against these plaintiffs, the plaintiffs have established a credible fear of such an action sufficient to establish standing. The case is ripe because no further facts are required to adjudicate plaintiffs’ specific claims, and there is a hardship to them in withholding judgment. Finally, plaintiffs have a valid cause of action. A. The EEOC spends a tremendous amount of briefing arguing that the district court issued an impermissible advisory opinion. The EEOC proffers a smorgasbord of potential faults with the court’s standing analysis, the most compelling being that the EEOC has not undertaken any enforcement action against plaintiffs and that plaintiffs have not suffered any harm nor any credible threat of harm from the EEOC’s guidance. True, the line between a declaratory judgment and an advisory opinion is fine, and classifying this case requires us to run headlong into the ongoing battle over standing. But we must ignore the tempting feast of fallacies that the EEOC offers to stray from our “‘virtually unflagging obligation’ to hear and decide a case” within our jurisdiction.[11] Standing is a constitutional requirement. Article III limits the federal judiciary to the resolution of “Cases” and “Controversies.”[12] On the other hand, courts are law-declaring institutions. “Rudimentary justice requires that those subject to the law must have the means of knowing what it prescribes . . . . [O]ne of emperor Nero’s nasty practices was to post his edicts high on the columns so that they would be harder to read and easier to transgress.”[13] Jurisdictional obtuseness leads to despotism. And ubi jus ibi remedium.[14] Yet “[f]ederal courts do not possess a roving commission to publicly opine on every legal question . . . . [F]ederal courts do not issue advisory opinions.” TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 141 S. Ct. 2190, 2203 (2021). There is no “unqualified right to pre-enforcement review,” even for claims raising fundamental constitutional rights. Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, 142 S. Ct. 522, 537–38 (2021). So, to establish standing, plaintiffs have the burden to demonstrate (1) that they have suffered an injury, (2) “fairly traceable to the defendant’s allegedly unlawful conduct,” and (3) “likely to be redressed by the requested relief.” California v. Texas, 141 S. Ct. 2104, 2113 (2021) (quoting DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U.S. 332, 342 (2006)). The disputed prong here is injury. Any injury to plaintiffs must be “concrete and particularized” and “actual or imminent.” Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992) (internal quotations removed). The EEOC accurately notes that it has taken no enforcement action against these plain-tiffs. And plaintiffs do not allege that they are aware of any applicants or current employees engaged in “homosexual or transgender behavior” or that they have taken any adverse employment action that could violate Bostock‘s interpretation of Title VII. Thus, the EEOC says there is no standing. Additionally, a plaintiff can demonstrate a cognizable injury in a pre-enforcement challenge only if it establishes that (1) it has “an intention to engage in a course of conduct arguably affected with a constitutional interest, but proscribed by a statute,” and (2) “there exists a credible threat of prosecution thereunder.”[15] Plaintiffs allege the credible threat is the in terrorem effects from the EEOC’s guidance documents and its previous lawsuit against a religious employer in Harris.[16] Both conjointly present a credible threat that Bear Creek and Braidwood will face enforcement actions for operating their places of employment in accordance with their faith. No party truly contests the facts, which indicate that plaintiffs’ employment policies facially violate the EEOC’s guidance, though they have not been actuated against any specific individual. Still, plaintiffs allege that, to establish standing, they are not required to violate the law and expose themselves to potential penalties—they merely need to show that this credible threat or well-founded fear exists. Plaintiffs point to numerous cases in which courts have allowed pre-enforcement actions to proceed.[17] For example, though Lopez v. Candaele is not controlling on this court, plaintiffs advance its theory of standing, namely, “a threat of government prosecution is credible if . . . there is a ‘history of past prosecution or enforcement under the challenged statute.’”[18] Further, in each of the listed cases, courts allowed litigation to proceed based on a credible-threat analysis without a showing of specific targeting. On the other hand, the EEOC denies the existence of any such credible threat. It notes that before an EEOC enforcement action can proceed, (1) a plaintiff must employ or receive an application from an individual against whom it would subject to what the EEOC considers an adverse employment action; (2) the plaintiff must subject the employee to an adverse employment action; (3) the employee would have to file a charge with the EEOC, and finally, (4) the EEOC would have to exercise its discretion to pursue said action. The EEOC states that this turn of events is highly speculative and not concrete, and plaintiffs, especially Braidwood, have provided no evidence that they have ever received an application from a protected party. Moreover, a general fear of prosecution “cannot substitute for the presence of an imminent, non-speculative irreparable injury.” Google, Inc. v. Hood, 822 F.3d 212, 228 (5th Cir. 2016). On this point, the EEOC alleges it has no history of taking adverse actions against parties like these plaintiffs. Indeed, the EEOC shows some evidence that it takes religious defenses seriously.[19] The EEOC emphasizes that Braidwood and Bear Creek can point to only one case—Harris—in which it took the position that a particular employer’s RFRA defense was invalid. The EEOC indicates that that one case is not a strong enough foundation to hoist the flag of standing. The EEOC also stresses the posture of this case, which is an as-applied pre-enforcement challenge to how RFRA interacts with Title VII and Bostock, as distinguished from a facial challenge. In assessing standing to bring pre-enforcement suits, “[t]he distinction between facial and as-applied challenges bears legal significance.”[20] Ultimately, though, plaintiffs have the better argument. To under-stand why, we must review the point of a declaratory judgment. In Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. 452, 475 (1974), the Court allowed the petitioner, whom the state police had threatened with arrest if he did not stop distributing anti-Vietnam War handbills outside a mall, to seek declaratory relief. To raise a constitutional challenge, the petitioner did not need to break the law and thereby expose himself to liability. Instead, he merely needed to show a “genuine threat” of enforcement. Id. Indeed, “‘[t]he purpose of the Declaratory Judgment Act is to settle “actual controversies” before they ripen into violations of law or breach of some contractual duty.’”[21] Plaintiffs’ credible-threat analysis is quite simple. First, they admit they are breaking EEOC guidance, which the EEOC does not seriously con-test. They posit statutory and constitutional issues with the laws under which they are at risk of being prosecuted: Those issues, they allege, are already forcing plaintiffs to choose either to restrict their religious practices or to risk potential penalties. And the EEOC’s actions in Harris, which the EEOC won under a less violative set of facts, indicate that plaintiffs, too, have a legitimate fear of prosecution, chilling their rights. “The loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.” Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 373 (1976) (plurality opinion). Finally, the EEOC refuses to declare affirmatively that it will not enforce Title VII against the plaintiffs’ policies on homosexual and transgender behavior. The EEOC responds that one action is not a history of enforcement.[22] But one case, especially one landmark case, such as Bostock, into which Harris was subsumed, can be considered a history of enforcement, even if the facts would not be precisely the same as in an action against Braidwood and Bear Creek. Bostock and Harris readily establish a credible threat to Braidwood’s and Bear Creek’s current practices. That is sufficient.[23] Plaintiffs’ policies mirror and, in many respects, go further than those of the employer in Harris. Thus, Harris shows that the EEOC may actively enforce Title VII in situations like plaintiffs’. Plaintiffs are justified in believing that Harris was a clear shot across the bow against their practices regarding homosexual and transgender employees. The EEOC claims that all Harris establishes is that “RFRA defenses to Title VII enforcement can present difficult, fact-intensive questions that cannot be categorically resolved ahead of time in the abstract. The only thing that can be said with certainty at this time is that RFRA may provide a defense to a Title VII enforcement action and that [the] EEOC should take RFRA’s requirements seriously.” That claim is coy at best and tenuous, especially after the EEOC acknowledges how favorable Harris was to it.[24] Plaintiffs are reasonably worried about the implications of that case on their practices. They are entitled to receive clarification from this court before stifling their constitutional practices or otherwise exposing themselves to punishment or enforcement action. That is a core purpose of a declaratory judgment. What is more, Congress did not explicitly give the EEOC substantive rulemaking authority.[25] That fact makes us even charier of granting the EEOC a blank check to issue guidance backed by the threat of an enforcement action without allowing employers to protect their own rights in response. Nor is this court required to plug its ears and ignore Bostock‘s siren call,[26] indicating the issues presented by this case require attention and have a chilling effect on employers whose religious exercises, until resolved, conflict with Title VII. Without resolution, potential penalties hang over plain-tiffs’ heads like Damocles’s sword. The EEOC’s attempts to distinguish plaintiffs’ proffered cases are also not persuasive. Most notably, the EEOC goes through the many points made by the Supreme Court in finding standing in Susan B. Anthony. There, the state commission already had found against the Susan B. Anthony List in a probable-cause hearing, 573 U.S. at 162, and the organization brought a facial, pre-enforcement challenge only after the complaint against it had been withdrawn, see id. at 154–55; 164. Moreover, the commission litigated 20 to 80 of those cases yearly. Id. at 164. All of those factors indicated that the threat of future enforcement was sufficient to justify the pre-enforcement challenge. Id. at 164–65. The EEOC posits that such a cavalcade is required to bring an action. But that is not accurate. In reality, Susan B. Anthony treated the threat of future enforcement as case- and fact-specific, understanding that evaluating threats against our most cherished rights cannot be neatly reduced to a rigid formula. See id. at 161–66. Different factors are weighed accordingly per the case-specific facts. As the Eighth Circuit has noted, even a “public[] announce[ment]” to enforce a statute and one prior proceeding are sufficient for standing. See Lucero, 936 F.3d at 749–50. Through Harris
