Sororities are free to induct whomever they want, including transgender sisters. That's according to the final ruling in a federal lawsuit that started at the University of Wyoming (UW) more than two years ago.
"Having considered the issues presented (again), we find that the majority of the claims must be dismissed on the grounds that this Court still may not interfere with [the sorority's] contractually valid interpretation of its own Bylaws," writes U.S. District Court Judge Alan Johnson in the final ruling.
In 2023, a few members of Kappa Kappa Gamma’s UW chapter sued their national organization, seeking to force the removal of a transgender sister.
The lawsuit was dismissed once before and rejected by an appeals court before being refiled in the U.S. District Court of Wyoming.
On Aug. 22, the suit was dismissed with prejudice, meaning it cannot be brought again. In the ruling, Judge Johnson writes the court would not enforce any particular definition of a 'woman.'
"Nothing in the Bylaws or the Standing Rules requires Kappa to narrowly define the words "women" or "woman" to include only those individuals born with a certain set of reproductive organs, particularly when even the dictionary cited by Plaintiffs offers a more expansive definition," Johnson writes. "Nor has Kappa or the Fraternity Council concealed this definition from its members: in fact, it has published and distributed multiple texts clarifying the issue."
The federal suit thrust the transgender sorority member in question, Artemis Langford, into the national spotlight. She told Wyoming Public Radio she received death threats after Fox News' Megyn Kelly suggested Langford had joined the sorority to creep on women.
"Every day I woke up feeling like, 'Oh, why does my mouth taste bad?' And then realizing like, 'Oh, my heart is racing and my mouth tastes like cotton. Oh, I'm having a panic attack.' Like I'm waking up with a panic attack," she said. "I just had to push, push, push to succeed. And somehow I managed to get through it."
Langford is now suing the lawyers who represented the sorority sister plaintiffs for damages. While she once envisioned "growing old" in Wyoming, she moved out of state this month, citing the stresses of the lawsuit and national attention, as well as a spate of new anti-trans laws passed in Wyoming over the last three years.
Those laws restrict access to gender-affirming care, require school counselors to out gay and transgender students to their parents, and ban transgender women and girls from high school and college sports teams.
President Trump's Department of Education has alleged that UW is violating Title IX, the federal law mandating gender equality in schools, by allowing a trans-inclusive sorority to operate on campus. It announced an investigation into UW in June.
