Is the term “women” one that “unquestionably has multiple definitions”?

That’s what an attorney for Kappa Kappa Gamma argued before the Tenth Circuit Court last week in the latest oral arguments as six sorority sisters challenge the admission of a transgender member. The women allege that the 6-foot-2 biological male, Artemis Langford, displayed a visible erection while staring at them, questioned the women about their vaginas and breasts, and videotaped them without their consent — in behavior that the sorority sisters say made them feel uncomfortable in their own home. 

They also say admitting a transgender member “changed everything” for the once-tightly knit group and was especially triggering to victims of sexual assault who now had to accept a biological male with “24/7 access” to their home.  

“The real wrong that has been done here is just a total abuse of the English language and violating any contract rights these girls had, not just these girls, but all 210,000 living Kappas right now,” the Independent Women’s Law Center director and the lead counsel representing the sorority sisters, May Mailman, tells the Sun.

Demonstrators — including a women’s right advocate and former collegiate swimmer, Riley Gaines — held a “Save Sisterhood” event outside of the courthouse last week as they demanded that sorority membership remain exclusively for biological females and rallied for the six sorority women. 

With nearly 6 million women currently initiated into sororities that are a part of the National Panhellenic Conference — an umbrella organization for 26 national sororities — the stakes of the lawsuit are likely to extend beyond the University of Wyoming.

“Definitely, we are going to try and address this from the Panhellenic level,” Ms. Mailman says, given that the Panhellenic Conference filed a brief in support of Kappa allowing transgender members. “The National Panhellenic Conference seems to be committed to the destruction of sororities.”

The National Panhellenic Conference and the lawyers for Kappa Kappa Gamma weren’t immediately responsive to requests for comment.

The six sorority sisters are appealing a dismissal of their lawsuit from a district court last year, in which a federal district judge sided with Kappa’s argument that as a private organization it has a right to define “women” however it wants. The six women contend, though, that admitting a transgender member violates the organization’s bylaws and governing documents, which mandate that “a new member shall be a woman.”

“From a national perspective, obviously whether and when men can enter women’s spaces is something that Americans disagree about,” Ms. Mailman says. “And with private organizations, I think it is important for language to have meaning so that people can have transparency and know what it is they’re getting into.”

In arguments for the appeal before the Tenth Circuit Court, two members of the three-judge panel “seemed to want to avoid this case desperately” and thus not have to “engage with the issue of whether these women should be allowed to sue the directors of their sorority for forcing a man into the sorority in violation of the bylaws,” Ms. Mailman says.

“If these judges kick this case on a procedural issue, and if they do it fast-ish in the next couple of months, that’s the end of the road for these girls in court,” she says. Yet there are other avenues for them to fight back, including universities and legislatures passing resolutions that clearly define “women.” Just last week, Mississippi’s governor signed legislation explicitly prohibiting transgender members in sororities at schools on public land. 

While those measures might be too late to help the specific women suing, Ms. Mailman says, the women can at least “use their voice and their experience to say, ‘Hey, at least in state law, we do need a definition of women because it’s getting abused.’”

Ultimately, the Kappa lawsuit is demanding transparency from private organizations about their definitions of “women,” Ms. Mailman says, noting that the issue is one that extends beyond sororities.

“What we’re asking for here is transparency, for language to have meaning, because it affects everybody,” she says. “It really does matter to the vast, vast majority of Americans.”