Federal judge, confused by Trump’s definition of ‘woman,’ dismisses lawsuit filed after man joins Wyoming sorority

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by former members of the Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter at the University of Wyoming after the group admitted a male member, Artemis Langford, in 2022.

On Friday, Judge Alan Johnson of the District of Wyoming dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, claiming that the three plaintiffs — Hannah Holtmeier, Allison Coghan, and Haley Rutsch — failed in their amended complaint to convince the court to “interfere with Kappa’s contractually valid interpretation of its own Bylaws.”

“Nothing in the Bylaws or the Standing Rules,” Johnson continued, “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.”

‘We are required to leave Kappa alone.’

Though plaintiffs noted that President Donald Trump provided a national standard for the terms in an executive order earlier this year, stating that “women … shall mean adult … human females” and “female … means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell,” Johnson, perhaps paraphrasing Ketanji Brown Jackson, expressed confusion about Trump’s clear-cut definitions: “We are not entirely sure what this definition means, not having a degree in biology.”

In any case, he said, those definitions are limited to the executive branch and its “interpretation of federal laws and administration policy” and have no bearing “in the world of private contracts” such as those between the official Kappa organization, based out of Ohio, and its membership.

“In short, we are required to leave Kappa alone,” he said.

RELATED: 22-year-old man admitted to local sorority chapter on ‘non-binary’ claim cries foul after the national sisterhood ousts him

Photo by Jimena Peck for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Johnson dismissed a previous complaint from some members of the Kappa chapter at UW on similar grounds, claiming that the Kappa organization had not defined what a “woman” is in its bylaws and therefore neither would he. “The court will not define a ‘woman’ today,” he wrote in August 2023.

Cheryl Tuck-Smith — an attorney, a UW alumna, and a Kappa sister for over 50 years before she was expelled for supporting the plaintiffs in these cases — noted at a rally in June 2024 that when Kappa was founded in 1870, “there was no confusion … about what a woman is,” suggesting that the Kappa foundresses would never have even thought that defining the term would ever be necessary.

‘It’s just so disappointing they can’t figure out the definition of a woman. I mean, really?’

Now, more than 150 years later, a man successfully joined their all-women’s organization with the apparent blessing of the Kappa leadership, who issued a nonbinding document in 2022 that stated, “Kappa Kappa Gamma is a single-gender organization comprised of women and individuals who identify as women.”

And since Judge Johnson dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, the plaintiffs, though they may still appeal Johnson’s ruling at the circuit court, are powerless to file another suit or amended complaint.

RELATED: College sorority faces lawsuit after admitting male member: He ‘had an erection visible through his leggings’

Photo by Jimena Peck for the Washington Post via Getty Images

Langford, who was not listed among the defendants on this lawsuit, has now moved out of Wyoming on account of the controversy and what Wyoming Public Radio called “new anti-trans laws” in the state. Langford told WPR, which used female pronouns in reference to him:

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. I just had to push, push, push to succeed. And somehow, I managed to get through it.

Kappa did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News. One attorney for the plaintiffs declined to give comment and another did not respond to our request.

Former state Rep. Mark Jennings (R-Sheridan) told Blaze News he’s not “surprised” by the federal judge’s decision. “Wyoming, for as conservative as they are, has packed their courts … with liberals,” he said.

“It’s just so disappointing they can’t figure out the definition of a woman. I mean, really?”

While Jennings expressed hope that Wyoming would slowly return to “common sense,” he noted that state legislators may have to rein in rogue judges within their purview: “I think that if you’re going to have judges that are going to pull this kind of nonsense, the power of the purse should not be taken off the table when it comes to the judiciary.”

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