Sorority sisters ask 10th Circuit to revive challenge to definition of ‘women’
Hannah Holtmeier, one of six plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, speaks outside the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Denver on May 14, 2024. (Photo by David Zalubowski/The Associated Press)
A group of sorority sisters asked the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Denver on Monday to revive its challenge to Kappa Kappa Gamma’s definition of “women” that currently allows transgender students identifying as women to join.
According to Courthouse News Service, attorney Angela Lavin, who is representing the sorority sisters, argued that the change in definition altered the organization’s very nature.
“Here we have an organization that for more than 150 years has represented itself as an ‘all-women’ organization; it also enacted policies to prohibit men from participating in activities,” said Lavin, who practices with Wegman Hessler in Cleveland.
Kappa Kappa Gamma was founded in 1870 as a women-only fraternity. The Kappa Fraternity Council issued a position statement in 2015 describing membership as including “women and individuals who identify as women.” That opened the door to allowing the organization to admit its first transgender sorority sister at the University of Wyoming in 2022, Courthouse News Service reported.
Hannah Holtmeier and five other sorority sisters at the University of Wyoming sued Kappa Kappa Gamma and its president in 2023, claiming that the leaders fixed the induction process “to force them to accept a biological male as their sister,” according to Courthouse News Service.
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