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.
Worth noting that this was not a great leap - the judge didn’t rule anything particularly interesting about trans rights, he simply said that freedom of association means you can’t go to court to force a private organization to exclude someone.
Exactly. I disagree strongly with the sorority’s decision, but can/should we compel individuals to hang out with people they don’t want to hang out with?
If the group receives public money, it’s a whole different situation
I’m assuming that the majority of members are fine with this, otherwise they’d simply change their bylaws to exclude trans women (and probably get away with doing so for the same legal reason). These 6 members were probably the losers of some internal battle who went to court to try to get their way anyway and failed.
This explanation certainly makes me feel the least concerned for the new sister, so I hope so!
to not exclude the trans woman?
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.
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.
In all of these situations, replace trans woman with, say, black woman. Now how does it sound?
Idk, sounds pretty okay to me
That was my point exactly. Can’t discriminate against protected classes.
So you made the same point they did and added nothing.