The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) is one of America's oldest and most respected lineage organizations. Founded in 1890 by women who were excluded from the Sons of the American Revolution, membership is limited to women not less than 18 years of age who can prove lineal descent from a Patriot who supported American independence during the Revolutionary War.
Today, one of those seemingly straightforward membership requirements sits at the center of a very modern controversy: whether trans-identifying men should be admitted to a historic women's organization. In October 2023, then-President General Pamela Rouse Wright, in her monthly message, stated, “Some have asked if this means a transgender woman can join DAR or if this means that DAR chapters have previously welcomed transgender women? The answer to both questions is, yes.” With that confirmation, members learned that DAR leadership had quietly admitted applicants using amended birth records for some time. For an organization known for exacting genealogical standards and rigorous documentation, the revelation came as a shock to many members.
On June 26, 2026, more than 3,000 Daughters gathered at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., for a historic vote on a resolution that would have interpreted the word “woman” in the DAR's bylaws as “a woman who was born female.” More than 90 chapters from 33 states had requested a Special Meeting on the resolution, after repeated efforts over the previous three years to bring the issue before the membership had been denied by DAR leadership.
On January 15, 2025, the National Society received a legal analysis of this issue as it relates to DAR as a private membership organization authored by Harmeet Dhillon of the Center for American Liberty. Upon their arrival at the Continental Congress this year, voting delegates were provided a legal opinion procured from activist law professor Samuel Bagenstos. Members were restrained from reading, quoting, referencing, or relying on any other legal information, despite the existence of the Dhillon analysis, which contradicts the Bagenstos opinion.
During debate on this most polarizing issue, members of the DAR Board of Management referred to a 1980s-era Washington Post article describing a proposal by a Washington, D.C., city councilman to revoke the DAR's property tax exemption based on discrimination in its membership practices. Delegates were warned that adopting the resolution could jeopardize the society's tax-exempt status and cost millions of dollars annually.
The Washington Post article in question was published on March 13, 1984, which referenced an attempt by D.C. City Councilman David A. Clarke to revoke the DAR’s property tax exemption due to racial discrimination against prospective member Lena Ferguson, who was a black woman. During the historic debate on this polarizing issue, opponents of the resolution leaned heavily on financial fear based on a 42-year-old article referencing a D.C. City Councilman who has been dead for more than 29 years. What they failed to mention, however, was that Lena Ferguson met each of the three criteria for membership in the DAR: she was a woman over 18 years old who could prove lineal descent from an American Patriot. Conversely, trans-identifying men fail to meet one-third of the essential criteria for membership. How then does denying membership to these individuals constitute discrimination?
Ultimately, after more than 12 brutal hours of debate, voting, and counting ballots — during which delegates were largely forbidden from leaving the room for any reason — the resolution failed to pass with a vote of 981 to 1,474.
Notably, this historic vote intersected with other remarkable events, namely the celebration of America’s 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and the Supreme Court’s landmark decision protecting the integrity of women’s and girls’ sports. In the SCOTUS opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, “men and boys with gender dysphoria are not women or girls, even if they believe they are. Sex is an immutable, ‘biological’ characteristic; it is binary;” and “to use language to obscure reality… is to lie to the public.”
The intervening weeks have revealed in stark relief the broad division among DAR members over this controversial issue. Some argue that extending membership to trans-identifying men is inclusive, while the membership of Daughters Advocating for Restoration — a Facebook group 18,000 members strong and rapidly growing — is resolute in their belief that even one man in a women’s organization fundamentally changes the composition of a society established exclusively for women.
The controversy over the issue of male members in the DAR has recently attracted the attention of our nation’s legislators. On July 15, Republican Rep. Ben Cline (VA-6) proposed H.R. 9701, the Daughters of the American Revolution Membership Integrity Act, which seeks to amend DAR’s Congressional Charter, granted in 1896, to include language that would define the word “woman” for membership purposes as “an adult human female.” Most recently, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced the corresponding bill in the Senate, S. 5152, on July 28, with four cosponsors. Sen. Blackburn said, “The [DAR] was founded by women for women, and its founders would be appalled that the organization is now allowing biological males to become members and undermine the legacy of real women who helped build our nation.”
DAR’s President General, Ginnie Sebastian Storage, commented on the House legislation in a July 16 email to DAR membership, reminding members that the “governance process, not federal legislation, is how this organization has always determined its own membership criteria.”
Unfortunately today, DAR is no longer a women’s society, as it departed from that distinction when the first man was admitted to membership. Rallying behind the cry to “hold the line!,” members of Daughters Advocating for Restoration maintain hope that Congressional relief will soon permanently resolve the debate over this contemporary issue in our historic organization, to restore the DAR to a women-only society — a controversy our founding mothers could scarcely have imagined.
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