Colorado group targets individual UW student with messages scattered across campus
Anti-trans activists led by Christina Goeke came to Laramie this week to protest one sorority’s acceptance of a trans student. They left messages on public property, around campus and by the sorority.
An anti-trans group from Colorado plastered the University of Wyoming campus with stickers, flyers, painted rocks and sidewalk chalk messages during a trip to Laramie Thursday.
The group’s leader, Christina Goeke, posted a video to Twitter Friday afternoon with footage of the campaign and a manifesto about their rationale, even as the UW police chief and a university spokesman say the incident is “under investigation.”
Numerous stickers and rocks can be seen in Goeke’s video, most bearing a pithy statement declaring that trans women are not women or that “adult human female” is the definition of woman.
Many of the painted rocks specifically targeted Artemis Langford, an individual UW student who happens to be the first openly trans sister inducted into UW’s Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority chapter.
It’s not the first time outsiders have come to UW intent on declaring their beliefs about Langford’s gender.
Last December, a Christian preacher tabling in the student union displayed a banner stating “God created male and female and Artemis Langford is a man.” The university banned him from tabling for one year not for his general anti-trans message, but for naming and targeting an individual transgender student.
The preacher, Todd Schmidt, sued the university, claiming it had infringed on his First Amendment right to free speech by discriminating against his personal perspective. UW countered that his table banner constituted harassment.
Schmidt won a preliminary injunction, which allowed him to return to the union and start tabling once more. U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Freudenthal wrote that Schmidt’s lawsuit had shown a “likelihood of success.” UW has signaled it will likely drop its defense.
The recent ruling in the union preacher case impacted how UW leaders responded to Goeke’s activism this week.
“Misgendering this transgender student, according to Judge (Nancy) Freudenthal, is not illegal harassment,” UW spokesman Chad Baldwin said. “And that's what the message was here.”
Before leaving the state, Goeke and her two fellow activists hung banners on the fence of an overpass. In the video, they laugh and goof around next to a banner stating “everybody knows” Langford “is a man.”
Sororities and lawsuits
Though just 21 years old, Langford is no stranger to these anti-trans incidents. She was catapulted into the national spotlight about one year ago, after being inducted into UW’s Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter.
A small story in the student newspaper celebrating that induction led to more widespread and eventually national attention. That was when Todd Schmidt, the union preacher, first caught wind of Artemis Langford. According to his lawsuit, he originally learned about Langford from a right-wing podcast, which in turn inspired him to name her on his banner.
Eventually, the spiraled into the free speech lawsuit detailed above — but his was not the only federal lawsuit to stem from Langford’s induction into KKG.
Six sorority members sued the national KKG organization earlier this year, seeking to expel Langford from the chapter. U.S. District Court Judge Alan B. Johnson ultimately ruled that KKG can induct whomever it wishes as a private organization following its own internal rules.
That ruling inspired Goeke’s protest, according to her video.
“To Kappa Kappa Gamma, ‘woman’ is a feeling,” Goeke said. “Well we have news for Judge Alan Johnson and Kappa Kappa Gamma: ‘woman’ is an adult human female. We are born, not worn. ‘Woman’ is not a costume. ‘Woman’ is a biological reality. There is no such thing as trans. These are just some people pretending to be something they are not.”
Langford’s lawyer, Rachel Berkness, has pushed back on this exact argument, saying that it’s been used to cast Langford as something she is not.
“What they're accusing my client of doing is engaging in this elaborate hoax to pretend to be female just in order to be around other women,” Berkness said.
Throughout the lawsuit, in legal filings and during national media appearances, the plaintiffs have referenced, commented upon, and even mocked Langford’s height, weight and appearance. It’s been a wild ride for the young history major, who shared her side of the story with WyoFile last month.
“I wish that they would see me as who I am,” Langford told WyoFile. “I am Artemis Langford. I’m from Lander, Wyoming. I went to high school here. I love this state. I love this campus and community. And I just hope that they’d see me as the person I am and not the ideology that they perceive me as.”
Ongoing investigation
According to UWPD, Goeke’s group scattered messages outside the sorority house itself, via flyers, sidewalk chalk and rocks. As detailed in a campus wide email, the police informed the activists that leaving unauthorized handbills violated city code and later collected the rocks as abandoned property; UW employees washed away the sidewalk chalk.
“Many of the messages were related to the sorority’s admission of a transgender student as a member,” the email states. “The individuals exercised their free speech rights, and no citations were issued.”
The matter is under investigation. Neither police nor UW spokesperson Chad Baldwin would say if the incident was being investigated as stalking or harassment.
“We're investigating,” Baldwin said. “And I'm just gonna leave it at that.”
Imagine driving that long to do bullshit like this, horrendous people.