#Artemis Langford is Dallin
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
Womanâ is not an ambiguous term open to an evolving interpretation.â - the attorneys representing the women who want to keep the sorority house they pay $8,000 for male free.
By Genevieve Gluck December 14, 2023
The female complainants at the center of a lawsuit to have a trans-identified male removed from a sorority at the University of Wyoming have re-filed their appeal, demanding the court clearly define the word âwoman.â Artemis Langford, previously known as Dallin, was accepted into Kappa Kappa Gamma (KKG) last September, spurring several women to file a lawsuit to have him removed.
In August, the case of Westenbroek v. Kappa Kappa Gamma Fraternity was dismissed on the basis that re-defining âwomanâ to include males was âKappa Kappa Gammaâs bedrock right.â Despite hearing testimony from the women, some of whom stated Langford had âwatchedâ them undress with an erection, Judge Alan Johnson rejected the womenâs request to rescind Langfordâs admission into the sorority.
However, on December 4, the young women filed an appeal to have the dismissal reversed, arguing that Langfordâs presence in the sorority house âcaused emotional distress in a personalized and unique way,â and demanding that the court clearly define the word âwoman.â
In the appeal, the women reassert that Langford displayed âstrange and sexual behaviorâ towards them, and caused them a level of discomfort and anxiety amounting to personal injury. It reiterates claims that Langford had been filming and photographing the women without their consent and had displayed a visible erection while in the house.
âSpecifically, Langfordâs unwanted staring, photographing, and videotaping of the Plaintiffs, as well as his asking questions about sex and displaying a visible erection while in the house, invaded Plaintiffsâ privacy and caused emotional distress in a personalized and unique way. And thus Plaintiffs have pleaded a viable direct claim. This Court should therefore reverse the district courtâs dismissal of Plaintiffsâ derivative and direct claims,â the appeal reads.
Some of the allegations are a reiteration of previous claims, which Langfordâs attorney, Rachel Berkness, has attempted to portray as both false and discriminatory during court proceedings. In June, Berkness filed a motion to dismiss the sorority womenâs claims against Langford as âfrivolous and malicious,â stating: âThe allegations against Ms. Langford ⌠were borne out of a hypothesis in search of evidence and pieced together using drunken party stories. Ms. Langford is not a victim; she is a target.â
The initial suit, filed at the end of March, had asserted that Langford, who is 6â2âł, had been voyeuristically peeping on the women while they were in intimate situations, and, on at least one occasion, had a visible erection while doing so.
âOne sorority member walked down the hall to take a shower, wearing only a towel ⌠She felt an unsettling presence, turned, and saw [Langford] watching her silently,â the court document reads.
â[Langford] has, while watching members enter the sorority house, had an erection visible through his leggings,â the suit says. âOther times, he has had a pillow in his lap.â
As evidenced by his Tinder profile, Langford is âsexually interested in women.â It was further stated in that Langford took photographs of the women while at a sorority slumber party, where he also is said to have made inappropriate comments.
âAt a slumber party, Langford ârepeatedly questioned the women about what vaginas look like, [and] breast cup size,â and stared as one Plaintiff changed her clothes,â reads the appeal. âLangford also talked about his virginity and discussed at what age it would be appropriate for someone to have sex⌠And he stated that he would not leave one of the sororityâs sleepovers until after everyone fell asleep.â
Langford was also said to have taken pictures of female members âwithout their knowledge or consent.â Some of the women noted that they had âobserved Langford writing detailed notes about [the students] and their statements and behavior.â
In May, a judge twice prohibited the women from suing anonymously, while stipulating that Langfordâs identity should remain protected. Langford was referred to by the pseudonym âTerry Smithâ and male pronouns in the legal documents. Six of the women then refiled the lawsuit under their own names, and are requesting that the court void Langfordâs membership in KKG.
âIt is really uncomfortable. Some of the girls have been sexually assaulted or sexually harassed. Some girls live in constant fear in our home,â one of the sisters, Hannah, told Megyn Kelly during an interview on her podcast.
Rather than addressing the privacy and safety concerns of the women in KKG, who had each paid $8,000 to live in the sorority house, âKappa officials recommended that ⌠they should quit Kappa Kappa Gamma entirely.â
In June, the sorority filed a motion to dismiss the suit, calling it a âfrivolousâ attempt to eject Langford for âtheir own political purposes.â According to the motion, the women suing were flinging âdehumanizing mudâ in order to âbully Ms. Langford on the national stage.â The sorority invited the women to resign their membership âif a position of inclusion is too offensive for their personal values.â
In the motion, lawyers for Kappa Kappa Gamma attempted to depict the suit as an attempt by âa vocal minorityâ to impose their views on Langford and the rest of the sorority members.
âPerhaps the greatest wrongs in this case are not the ones Plaintiffs and their supporters imagine they have suffered, but the ones that they have inflicted through their conduct since filing the Complaint,â they wrote. âRegardless of personal views on the rights of transgender people, the cruelty that Plaintiffs and their supporters have shown towards Langford and anyone in Kappa who supports Langford is disturbing.â
The recent appeal against the suitâs dismissal, filed on behalf of the young women by Sylvia May Mailman of the Independent Womenâs Law Center, the Law Office of John G. Knepper, Schaerr Jaffe LLP, and Cassie Craven of Longhorn Law firm, details several alleged violations of the sorority sistersâ rights, as well as KKGâs own policies.
âThe question at the heart of this case is the definition of âwoman,â a term that Kappa has used since 1870 to prescribe membership, in Kappaâs governing documents,â the appeal states. âUsing any conceivable tool of contractual interpretation, the term refers to biological females. And yet, the district court avoided this inevitable conclusion by applying the wrong law and ignoring the factual assertions in the complaint.â
It goes on to note that from 1870 to 2018, KKG defined âwomanâ to exclude âtransgender womenâ and that any new definition may not be enacted without a KKG bylaw amendment.
Numerous examples are given of rules put forward by the sorority which use the term âwoman,â with the attorneys maintaining that ââwomanâ is not an ambiguous term open to an evolving interpretation.â
KKG leaders who approved Langfordâs membership have âsubverted Kappaâs mission and governing documents by changing the definition of âwomanâ without following the required processes.â Kappa President Mary Pat Rooneyâs legal team has argued that Langfordâs admission into the sorority was based on a 2015 position statement which asserts that KKG âis a single-gender organization comprised of women and individuals who identify as women.â
However, the womenâs legal appeal points out that KKG can only change its membership criteria by amending its Bylaws, a process which requires a two-thirds majority approval vote by a Convention of board members. As a Convention to amend Bylaws to reflect the position statement was never held, the appeal states, Langfordâs acceptance into KKG is a violation of accepted policies.
KKG leadership is also accused of using âcoerciveâ tactics during the process of voting Langford into the organization in September 2022. After an initial anonymous vote conducted via Google poll failed to result in Langfordâs acceptance into the sorority, Chapter leaders developed a second, non-anonymous voting system in which multiple sisters changed their votes because of âfear of reprisal.â
In addition to denying women anonymity, Wyoming chapter officials, after consultation with Kappaâs leadership, had told members that voting against Langfordâs admission was evidence of âbigotryâ that âis a basis for suspension or expulsion from the Sorority.â
Curiously, prior court documents also reveal that Langford was admitted to KKG despite not even meeting their basic academic eligibility requirements.Â
While KKG requires applicants to have a 2.7 Grade Point Average (GPA), Langford only had a 1.9 at the time he submitted his membership request, and was not on a grade probation. The legal complaint notes that this indicates Langfordâs application was âevaluated using a different standard.â
In November, two longstanding alumni members of KKG revealed they had been expelled in an apparent retaliation for advocating that membership be restricted to females only. Patsy Levang and Cheryl Tuck-Smith had been members of the sorority for over 50 years, and had contributed to fundraising efforts for the organization.
Despite their long history of supporting KKG, Levang and Tuck-Smith were voted out by the sororityâs national leadership on November 9. Levang had been the past Kappa Kappa Gamma National Foundation President, while Tuck-Smith was an active contributor and organizer.
The womenâs removal came after they had been vocally opposed to the admission of Langford to the KKG chapter at the University of Wyoming, and had supported a lawsuit launched by members of that sorority to have him removed.
Since news of the lawsuit first became widely circulated, Langford has received ample sympathetic coverage in mainstream media, with one MSNBC host labeling him âbrave and unique.â In a recent profile by the Washington Post, Langford was given a platform to accuse the sorority sisters involved in the suit of lying while being compared to women who had historically been denied the right to a basic education.
#usa#university of wyoming#What is a woman?#Artemis Langford is Dallin#What is with TIMs choosing the names of goddesses?#Kappa Kappa Gamma (KKG)#The case of Westenbroek v. Kappa Kappa Gamma Fraternity#Get Judge Alan Johnson of the bench#Transbian#The court system was offering to protect the creeps identity but not the women involved#The women each paid $8000 to live in the sororiety house#Independent Womenâs Law Center#the Law Office of John G. Knepper#Schaerr Jaffe LLP#and Cassie Craven of Longhorn Law firm#from 1870 to 2018#From 1870 to 2018 KKG defined âwomanâ to exclude âtransgender womenâ#any new definition may not be enacted without a KKG bylaw amendment#woman is not an ambiguous term open to an evolving interpretation#Convention to amend Bylaws to reflect the position statement was never held#Langfordâs acceptance into KKG is a violation of accepted policies.#After an initial anonymous vote conducted via Google poll failed to result in Langfordâs acceptance into the sorority#Chapter leaders held a second non-anonymous voting system in which multiple sisters changed their votes because of âfear of reprisal.â#While KKG requires applicants to have a 2.7 Grade Point Average (GPA)#Langford only had a 1.9 at the time he submitted his membership request#and was not on a grade probation. The legal complaint notes that this indicates Langfordâs application was âevaluated using a different sta#TIMs claim to be victims but get a lot of perks#Kappa Kappa Gamma (KKG) would rather kick out two women who were active supports of the organization for decades than admit they were wrong
115 notes
¡
View notes