Pi Beta Phi sorority updating national bylaws to include transgender women

The Pi Beta Phi sorority will join Kappa Kappa Gamma and Delta Gamma, Chapman sororities that are nationally inclusive to transgender women. Graphic by Rebeccah Glaser

The Pi Beta Phi sorority plans to update its nondiscrimination policy to be more inclusive of transgender women, said national Pi Beta Phi’s senior director of marketing and communications Eily Cummings.

Although Cummings was unable to specify when the new policy would be issued, she told The Panther that the decision to issue the changes took place before senior philosophy major Deanna Merced wrote a now-closed petitionOct. 18, urging the sorority to include transgender women.

“As a member of Pi Beta Phi, I was disappointed to learn that my own organization did not have a similar policy,” Merced wrote in the petition. “I couldn’t help but think of our values, and how we could truly be living them out to the fullest extent if we were to include these women in our membership.”

Merced declined an interview with The Panther, but confirmed that she was contacted within hours of posting the petition by members of Pi Beta Phi’s national headquarters and was told that updates to the nondiscrimination policy were already being drafted.

“We have had our policy change in the works long before this petition was issued,” Cummings wrote in an email. “And the reason the petition came down so quickly was because Ms. Merced was elated to hear that we were already making a change. There was no need for a petition.”

When the changes to the policy are finalized, Pi Beta Phi will join Chapman sororities Delta Gamma and Kappa Kappa Gamma, who already have national policies about including transgender women.

In March, the bylaws of the Chapman Panhellenic Council, the governing body for Chapman’s sororities, were updated to reflect transgender inclusivity, said senior Kati Simpson, Chapman Panhellenic’s vice president of scholarship and standards.

The updated bylaws state that “the Chapman University Panhellenic Association is committed to equal opportunity for all and does not discriminate in membership or access to its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, national origin, ability, age, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation or gender identity (as long as the person in question identifies as a member of the female gender).”

Simpson said that while the bylaws ensure that transgender students can participate in Panhellenic-sanctioned events, like recruitment and Greek Week, Panhellenic legally cannot force individual sororities to change their nondiscrimination policies, issue membership bids to transgender students or allow transgender students to attend philanthropy events – even if they are public and ticketed.

“Philanthropy events and chapter events are the prerogative of each individual organization,” Simpson said. “That’s not something Panhellenic regulates. I hope (sororities wouldn’t exclude transgender students), but it’s up to their own regulations and governing documents. If it’s a chapter-specific event, and they are the ones coordinating and running it, and it’s
not Panhellenic, then we can’t control what they do.”

Social sororities and fraternities are allowed to be single-sex organizations under a provision of Title IX, which exempts them from taxation as a social organization under section 501(c)(7) of the IRS code.

“Title IX does not apply to the membership practices of social fraternities and sororities,” the U.S. Department of Education wrote in a “Dear Colleague” letterreleased in May. “Those organizations are therefore permitted under Title IX to set their own policies regarding the sex, including gender identity, of their members.”

Students who support inclusion hope that this update to the bylaws may bring about a social norm of including transgender students in Greek Life.

“I really want it to be that all sororities accept transgender members, and if you don’t accept transgender members, that’s odd,” said junior environmental science and policy major Dina Sabatelli.

“Now it’s like, ‘Oh, they accept transgender members. That’s cool, that’s interesting. But I want it to be the other way around. Like, ‘Oh, you don’t accept transgender members, why?’”

A previously published version of this story was taken down on Oct. 31 due to an inaccurate date and misleading quotes. The above information is correct.

Kristen Weiser contributed to this report.