Cis sisters sue sorority for allowing trans student to join

A sorority in Wyoming has been rocked by the induction of a transgender woman into its ranks and now faces legal action over whether she’ll stay or be expelled.

At the start of the school year at the University of Wyoming in Laramie last September, the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority voted to admit the Wyoming chapter’s first transgender inductee.

Related:

Kansas AG sues for the right to force trans people to use the wrong gender markers on IDs

This is Kris Kobach’s latest move in an ongoing battle between himself and the state’s Democratic Governor Laura Kelly.

Six members decided to sue over the decision to admit the new sorority sister, Artemis Langford.  

Stay connected to your community

Connect with the issues and events that impact your community at home and beyond by subscribing to our newsletter.

Daily

Weekly

Good News

“It is unclear why — when a large man pushes his way into an all-female space — the women who object are the bullies,” reads one filing by attorneys for the women, who’ve been engaged in a legal battle with the sorority since suing in April. In that filing and others, the plaintiffs have repeatedly misgendered Langford, one of the defendants in the case.

The lawsuit claims breach of contract for the sorority’s alleged indifference toward its governing documents.

The women “claim the rather unremarkable right, as members of a nonprofit corporation, to insist that the corporation follow its bylaws,” reads one court filing for the six women, Jaylyn Westenbroek, Hannah Holtmeier, Allison Coghan, Grace Choate, Madeline Ramar, and Megan Kosar. “They dispute whether it has lawfully done so.”  

The six claim they’ve been “labeled attention-seeking liars, an old playbook from our history when women call out the men who force themselves upon them and their privacy” in response to the sorority’s motion to dismiss the case. “But the times have changed. Women no longer must be silent victims to men who attempt to play by their own set of rules.”

The sorority and Langford asked Wyoming’s U.S. District Court Judge Alan B. Johnson to dismiss the lawsuit in a filing in June.

The April complaint alleged “leering, gawking, lurking, and intimidation” by Langford while in the sorority house or around the plaintiffs and witnesses joining their lawsuit, according to Cowboy State Daily.

Langford, “while watching members enter the sorority house, had an erection visible through his leggings,” the suit alleges. “Other times, he has had a pillow in his lap.”  

“Plaintiffs are living the reality of Langford’s biological, sex-based differences,” reads the response to the sorority’s motion to dismiss.

“When a 6’2” person who weighs 260 pounds and has benefited from male puberty sits in a sorority dining room – staring and scowling at the young women who filed a complaint with this Court – that moment is not just a disagreement among ‘us’ girls. That angry glare is a threat, a threat made possible by that man’s superior size and strength.”   

In the motion to dismiss, Langford and Kappa Kappa Gamma accused the six plaintiffs of slinging “dehumanizing mud.” They argued the sorority can dictate the terms of its membership under the constitutional right to free association.  

The sorority said it can evolve along with the definition of “woman,” which they said is a more “inclusive” description now than when the sorority was founded 150 years ago.