June 23, 2023 |
Photo – Artemis Langford, transgender named in civil lawsuit – Courtesy facebook.com
The defendants involved in the University of Wyoming Kappa Kappa Gamma civil lawsuit over their efforts to insert a biological male into the Laramie sorority filed motions Tuesday to dismiss the case in federal district court.
The motion comes four months after seven sorority members filed a complaint against their fraternity and Kappa Kappa Gamma’s national leadership. Also named in the motion is Artemis Langford, a biological male UW student who claims to be a transgender woman—the first ever such person to accepted into the sorority.
In the 70-page complaint filed by the sorority members, the plaintiffs are seeking relief from the defendants for alleged breach of their fiduciary duties, violating bylaws, standing rules and policies of the sorority, as well as the actions of Langford.
The amended complaint reads, “Langford — a man who claims to be a woman because he thinks he knows how women should behave — has been brought into Plaintiffs’ sorority house.”
The complaint continues, “The Fraternity Council has betrayed the central purpose and mission of Kappa Kappa Gamma, by conflating the experience of being a woman with the experience of men engaging in behavior generally associated with women.”
The legal fight escalated recently with the fraternity’s national organization filing its own motion alleging that ““the amended complaint fails to state a claim upon which the court can grant relief.” In its motion, the national organization of Kappa Kappa Gamma calls out the UW sorority sisters for believing that “Langford and anyone else who is not biologically born female should be ineligible for membership in Kappa.”
In a separate motion, Langford, the person born male but who claims to be female, asked the court to dismiss the case with prejudice. The defendant’s attorney told the court “Ms. Langford exemplifies the best of what a Wyoming woman is.”
The plaintiffs in the case, the seven sorority sisters, have not yet responded to the motions for dismissal.
