Judge Dismisses University Of Wyoming Sorority Student’s Lawsuit Against Transgender Member

OAN’s Abril Elfi
11:33 AM – Tuesday, August 29, 2023

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against a transgender sorority member that allegedly acted inappropriately towards other female members.

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On Friday, a federal judge in Wyoming dismissed a lawsuit filed by members of the University of Wyoming’s Kappa Kappa Gamma Sorority to have a transgender woman, who identifies as Artemis Langford, expelled from the Greek life organization.

Members of the sorority sued the organization and Langford in March, claiming that Langford is a man and that “Kappa Kappa Gamma limits membership to women only.” 

According to the Sorority’s Bylaws, every new member must be ‘a woman.’ “A woman is an adult human female. No matter how he describes himself, a grown human male is not a woman,” they stated.

The lawsuit went on to state that after Langford was admitted to the sorority through votes from members and the president, however, many of the members that lived in the house said they felt uncomfortable by Langford’s behavior.

“Langford states that he is transgender and that he self-identifies as a woman. His behavior, however, does not reflect a man living as a woman let alone a man attempting to ‘consistently live’ as a woman,” the complaint said. “Other than occasionally wearing women’s clothing, Langford makes little effort to resemble a woman. He has not undergone treatments to create a more feminine appearance, such as female hormones, feminization surgery, or laser hair removal. Plaintiffs often observe Langford with the facial hair one would expect on a man who either did not shave that morning or whose facial hair has regrown by the evening.”

The members putting on the lawsuit also accused Langford of staring at other female members and having “an erection visible through his leggings.”

Reportedly, photos of text exchanges between sorority members were included in a response to the complaint, implying that there was doubt among sisters about whether or not the claims against Langford were made up. 

In one message, a member who claimed to be present in the room at the time of the alleged incident appeared to write to another member in the screenshots shown in court saying, “I’m pretty much 100% positive it did not happen. but also what if [redacted] actually saw something like that… I don’t want to be saying this awful thing didn’t happen.”

Despite the accusations of the sorority sisters, a federal judge denied the request to have Langford’s membership in the chapter revoked. 

“The University of Wyoming chapter voted to admit – and, more broadly, a sorority of hundreds of thousands approved – Langford. With its inquiry beginning and ending there, the Court will not define ‘woman’ today. The delegate of a private, voluntary organization interpreted ‘woman’, otherwise undefined in the nonprofit’s bylaws, expansively; this Judge may not invade Kappa Kappa Gamma’s freedom of expressive association and inject the circumscribed definition Plaintiffs urge,” the judge said. “Holding that Plaintiffs fail to plausibly allege their derivative, breach of contract, tortious interference, and direct claims, the Court dismisses, without prejudice, Plaintiffs’ causes of action.”

Reportedly, Kappa Kappa Gamma was the first sorority in the University of Wyoming’s history to accept an open-transgender student into their chapter.

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