Sorority sisters ask 10th Circuit to revive challenge to Kappa Kappa Gamma’s definition of ‘woman’

Attorney Angela Lavin argued before the 10th Circuit Monday that Kappa Kappa Gamma's 2015 decision to define membership as including ‘women and individuals who identify as women’ altered the 150-year-old organization's fundamental character, on behalf of University of Wyoming sisters who sued after the sorority's first transgender member was inducted in 2022.

Judges Jerome Holmes and Nancy Moritz pressed Lavin on why judicial intervention was warranted at all, questioning whether the fraternity council's authority to interpret its own undefined terms was any of the court's business. Kappa Kappa Gamma's attorney Natalie McLaughlin argued the interpretation was reasonable and that dissenting members could propose their own bylaw amendment or elect different board members instead of suing.

The case has already bounced through the lower courts twice, with a district judge dismissing it without prejudice in 2023, an amended complaint filed in 2025, and a second dismissal with prejudice that the sisters are now appealing. The panel did not indicate when it would rule.

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