The Daughters of the American Revolution voted on 10 October 2026 to dissolve its Martha Laird Chapter in Texas, after finding officers had used the chapter's authority and resources to further a separate advocacy organisation. The chapter had campaigned to bar trans women from joining DAR. DAR has recognised women with legally amended birth certificates as eligible members for years.

An organisation founded in 1890 decided that a trans woman who qualifies for membership qualifies for membership, and the chapter that disagreed is the one that no longer exists.

What actually happened

The National Board of Management passed a resolution by a two-thirds majority to disband the Martha Laird Chapter, citing violations of Article XIX, Section 4 of DAR's national bylaws. Organising Secretary General Marguerite Hogan Fritsch wrote to chapter members to confirm the decision.

DAR was at pains to explain what the violation was. Officers had used the chapter's name, leadership positions, communications, and governance processes to further the goals of a separate advocacy organisation. The board was explicit: the decision was not based on the chapter's views about membership eligibility, or on its members' right to advocate for bylaw changes through proper channels. It was the use of chapter infrastructure for outside purposes that constituted the problem.

Individual members of the Martha Laird Chapter retain their DAR membership. They are free to continue advocating for changes through the organisation's established processes. The chapter is gone; the people in it are not.

The campaign that brought things to this point

In September 2024, the Martha Laird Chapter, supported by eleven other chapters, submitted a proposed bylaw amendment that would define membership eligibility based on biological sex. DAR's National Board of Management rejected that amendment in February 2025. In June 2026, national members rejected a resolution to add further membership restrictions.

The chapter also sought legal assistance from the Center for American Liberty, which challenged DAR's position that excluding trans applicants could risk the organisation's tax-exempt status. Member Laura McDonald was vocal throughout, describing DAR's approach as a contradiction of its founding mission.

What the chapter did not appear to do was accept any of those democratic outcomes.

The political response

Conservative politicians have been quick to frame the dissolution as an attack on women. Representative Ben Cline of Virginia introduced the Daughters of the American Revolution Membership Integrity Act, which would amend DAR's congressional charter to restrict membership to biological women. Senator Marsha Blackburn introduced companion legislation in the Senate. Cline described DAR's current approach as embracing what he called radical gender ideology at the expense of the women it was created to serve.

Sonja Shaw, a conservative California superintendent candidate, said that the women of the Martha Laird Chapter had stood their ground and been punished for it. She asked why women should face consequences for defending the very definition of the organisation they belong to.

That question deserves a direct answer. A trans woman is a woman. She is not a man claiming to be a woman. She is not a loophole. She is not a threat to the organisation or to the other women in it. DAR recognised this years ago when it confirmed that women with legally amended birth certificates are eligible to join provided they meet the genealogical requirements. The chapter was not defending a definition: it was contesting one that DAR had already settled.

What DAR's decision actually means

Organisations like DAR exist to honour lineage, history, and shared identity. The genealogical requirement is the substantive one: can you demonstrate descent from someone who aided the cause of American independence? If you can, and you are a woman, you are eligible. DAR's position is that trans women are women. That is the right position, and it has been DAR's position for some time.

The Martha Laird Chapter spent years trying to change it through bylaw amendments, legal challenges, and, apparently, through the use of chapter resources for advocacy beyond the chapter's remit. It did not succeed, because the membership and the national board did not agree with it. That is how democratic organisations work.

The claim that this punishes women for speaking up does not hold. Women who are members of DAR, including trans women, remain members. The chapter that tried to remove some of them is dissolved. Nobody has been barred from advocating further. What has ended is the use of a chapter's official structures for a campaign the organisation as a whole had repeatedly declined to endorse.

Why this matters beyond one chapter in Texas

There is a broader effort underway to define women's spaces as spaces for some women, with trans women placed firmly outside. We see it in sports policy, in single-sex services, in political rhetoric, and now in attempts to reshape the membership rules of a 136-year-old genealogical society through federal legislation. The argument is always framed as protection: protection of women, of girls, of dignity, of tradition.

What it actually protects is exclusion. And the thing about exclusion is that it always needs a reason, and the reasons are always presented as self-evident.

DAR looked at the question and gave a different answer. It said: if you qualify genealogically and you are a woman, you belong here. Trans women qualify on both counts. The chapter that said otherwise has been dissolved, not for its views, but for how it pursued them.

I find that genuinely heartening. Not because the fight is over, and not because federal legislation cannot still cause real harm, but because an old and established institution looked at who trans women are and said: yes, you are one of us. That matters.

If there is a news story you would like me to cover then just let Sammy know.

Dr Helen Webberley is a Gender Specialist, Medical Educator, and founder of GenderGP. She writes about gender identity, trans healthcare, and the lives of trans people and their families.