Lawsuit aimed at removing trans sorority sister thrown out of court – for the final time
A University of Wyoming campus building (Creative Commons)
A University of Wyoming campus building (Creative Commons)
A judge has thrown out a lawsuit launched by plaintiffs looking to stop US sororities admitting trans women.
Alan Johnson dismissed the case with prejudice on Friday (22 August), meaning it cannot be brought before a judge again, saying the courts could not interfere in the sorority’s “valid interpretation of its own bylaws”.
Members of Kappa Kappa Gamma’s Wyoming chapter sued the national organisation, Kappa Fraternity Council, in 2023 after a trans sister was allowed to join.
Writing in his ruling, the judge said: “Nothing in the bylaws or the standing rules requires Kappa to narrowly define the words ‘women’ or ‘woman’ to include only individuals born with a certain set of reproductive organs, particularly when even the dictionary cited by plaintiffs offers a more expansive definition.”
The lawsuit had already been rejected a number of times but was refiled in June, little more than a year after an appeal was denied.
The case was originally dismissed by Johnson in 2023. In his original ruling, he said the sisters could not force a “private, voluntary” sorority to change its definition of “woman”.
Artemis Langford, the trans sister involved in the long-running legal battle, is reported to be planning to sue the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, claiming the headlines caused by the case had forced her to move out of Wyoming.
“Every day I woke up feeling: why does my mouth taste bad?” she told Wyoming Public Radio. “Then realising my heart [was pounding and I was] having a panic attack.” She had received death threats after the story was covered by Fox News, she said.
The Kappa Fraternity Council, which oversees sorority chapters across the US, changed its definition of women to include trans women in 2015 and accepted Langford, its first transgender member, seven years later.
Share your thoughts! Let us know in the comments below, and remember to keep the conversation respectful.
How did this story make you feel?
