Six members of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority have attempted to sue the University of Wyoming to revoke the membership of Artemis Langford. The case was dismissed from court due to the sorority’s bylaws not defining a woman. The definition of a woman is a highly contested topic that has a very simple answer: a woman is someone who identifies as a woman.
The allegations against Langford consist of basic TERF ideology. Langford was accused of being sexually inappropriate. The six sorority sisters who filed the suit said that she made them uncomfortable deliberately. Langford is entirely innocent of this, as the allegations were proven to be “nothing but drunken rumors.” As Langford’s attorney, Rachel Berkness said in an email to the Associated Press, “The allegations against Ms. Langford should never have made it into a legal filing. They are nothing more than cruel rumors that mirror exactly the type of rumors used to vilify and dehumanize members of the LGBTQIA+ community for generations. And they are baseless.”
The lawsuit has gathered a lot of buzz, both due to Wyoming University being the state’s only four-year public university and the push for trans individuals to receive basic human rights and equity.
Despite the steps we have taken as a society to create a world in which everyone can thrive, trans women and girls often face the harmful rhetoric that says they are predators in more places than just schools and public bathrooms. Statistically, trans individuals are far more likely to be harmed in these spaces than to harm anyone else. A 2021 study conducted by the Williams School of Law found that trans individuals are four times more likely to face discriminatory violence than cis individuals. The Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority is only another example of a safe space that aims to exclude trans women from their community.
