Sorority Sisters Fight Ruling Allowing Transgender Member’s Admission Despite "Inappropriate Behavior"
A transgender member of Kappa Kappa Gamma's University of Wyoming chapter, Artemis Langford, invaded women's privacy, "caused emotional distress," and engaged in "inappropriate, odd behavior" at the sorority house – but the court previously dismissed the case.
"What is a woman?" That was the central debate question at the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals last Tuesday. The legal battle stemmed from a lawsuit filed by six sorority sisters against Kappa Kappa Gamma leaders.
Their grievance? The decision to admit a transgender individual, Artemis Langford, into the University of Wyoming chapter. According to the sisters, Langford "invaded their privacy and 'caused emotional distress' by engaging in 'inappropriate and odd behavior' in their house," as reported by The New York Sun.
The harassment didn't stop there. The biological man allegedly photographed the young women without their consent, asked questions about sex and their genitalia, and displayed erections while staring at them. Now, the sorority sisters are appealing a previous court's dismissal of their lawsuit.
The lower court ruled in favor of the sorority leaders, allowing them the right to define “woman" more broadly to include transgender women. In presiding over the case, Judge Alan Johnson emphasized the sorority's autonomy as a private organization, stating that defining “woman” falls within their purview. “Defining ‘woman’ is Kappa Kappa Gamma’s bedrock right as a private, voluntary organization and one this Court may not invade,” he wrote. To summarize, the judge and the sorority leaders failed the sorority sisters, who asked for protection from a man who infiltrated their spaces.
Jay Richards, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, criticized the sorority's decision to include a transgender woman. “This is probably the most important controversy affecting college Greek life in general and especially sororities going forward,” he told The Sun.
"The trial before the Tenth Circuit is between members of the Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter at the University of Wyoming and the chapter itself, and I think honestly this indicates the problem,” he added, saying that it’s “outrageous” the chapter forced the sisters to allow a “man among its members.”
“I think if the courts don’t step in and move in the right direction here, we’re going to essentially see some sororities effectively destroying themselves in order to comply with the bizarre canons of gender ideology,” Richards said.
May Mailman, representing the sorority sisters, argues that admitting a biological male contravenes the sorority's rules, which mandate new members to be women. Mailman asserts that gender ideology shouldn't override legal principles. “They utterly failed to do so by ending the sorority’s women-only membership and threatening existing members to accept the unlawful change or else lose their own membership,” she argued. “If this fight were about any other common term, the violation would be obvious. Gender ideology is not a reason to upend simple legal principles, and we look forward to making our case to the Tenth Circuit.”
Kappa Kappa Gamma continues to argue that it has the right to interpret its own rules, including its bylaws, which don't specifically define the term "woman," and will continue to fight to include individuals "who identify as women," ignoring the cries of the sisters who reportedly faced harassment from Langford.
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