A panel of three judges is considering whether the sorority that inducted a transgender member into its Wyoming-based chapter in 2022 could have acted in bad faith, and whether the six women who sued over the move appealed their case too early.
Women's-rights activist Riley Gaines joined six Wyoming women Tuesday for oral argument in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver – which encompasses Wyoming – in the case of Westenbroek v. Kappa Kappa Gamma.
The case started in March of 2023, when seven (later six) women sued the sorority, its director, and the transgender member the Laramie, Wyoming, chapter admitted.
The women claimed the sorority’s leadership was harming the organization, its offshoot housing corporation had broken its contract to sorority house residents, and the sorority leaders interfered with that contract. They also invoked a direct cause accusing the defendants of harming them.
U.S. District Court Judge Alan B. Johnson dismissed their claims six months later.
