A judge has dismissed a lawsuit contesting a transgender woman’s admission into a sorority at the University of Wyoming, ruling that he could not override how the private, voluntary organization defined a woman and order that she not belong.

In the lawsuit, six members of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority chapter challenged Artemis Langford’s admission by casting doubt on whether sorority rules allowed a transgender woman. Wyoming U.S. District Court Judge Alan Johnson, in his ruling, found that sorority bylaws don’t define who’s a woman.

The case at Wyoming’s only four-year public university drew widespread attention as transgender people fight for more acceptance in schools, athletics, workplaces and elsewhere, while others push back.

  • DessertStorms@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I disagree strongly with the sorority’s decision

    to not exclude the trans woman?

    can/should we compel individuals to hang out with people they don’t want to hang out with?

    of course not, but if the people who don’t want to “hang out” with others only don’t want to because of wilfully ignorant hate (in other words - for no good reason, and of course this isn’t about not wanting to hang out this is about excluding and attempting to erase an entire group of people), it shouldn’t be the person who they hate for no good reason who is excluded, but them.

    • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Agree on principle, but you simply can’t make private organizations associate with someone they don’t want to.

      Sure, I bet some of the members were fine with her joining, but they joined an organization with a decision making hierarchy, and have to abide by that leadership’s vote/decision. If they don’t like the decision they should leave, and join a more open group. (or work to remove the leadership and bring about the changes they want).

      In this case it sounds like the rules didn’t bar her from joining so I don’t get the case at all.

      Trans women are women, don’t come at me like I’m a bigot.

      • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        You’re missing a key fact here: the sorority admitted her. This suit was by individual members trying to force the sorority to reverse their decision. This decision didn’t establish new rights for trans people or affirm their existing rights, it affirmed the right of an organization to establish membership criteria that can’t be overridden even by members of that organization.

        How this would go wrt gender/sex being federally protected classes is an interesting question, but hasn’t been examined by this case. All this did was establish that these 6 hateful shitheads can’t force the rest of the group to be hateful shitheads. Or, more accurately, it failed to establish that they can.

      • LoopingRiver@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        In all of these situations, replace trans woman with, say, black woman. Now how does it sound?

        • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Pretty shitty! What, are you trying to use a gotcha?

          You can’t make private groups accept someone. It sucks, and results in some very distasteful scenarios.

          Employment or public groups? Very different.

        • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          I think black women should be allowed in sororities even if individual members object. This is in keeping with the law that allows private organizations to associate freely under most circumstances but prevents discrimination based on federally protected classes.

          Idk, sounds pretty okay to me

        • ShakeThatYam@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I mean, I’m pretty sure the Ku Klux Klan doesn’t allow black women. They have the right to do that.