Woke activists have spent years infiltrating every cherished American institution and daring its members to stop them.
Now they’ve come for the Daughters of the American Revolution – days before July 4th.
The women who built it are calling it the worst betrayal in the organization's 136-year history.
DAR Leaders Rejected Born Female Definition to Keep Transgender Members
The Daughters of the American Revolution was founded in 1890 as a women-only patriotic society – created specifically because the Sons of the American Revolution refused to admit women.
For 136 years it has honored female descendants of American Revolution patriots, growing to 190,000 members across 3,000 chapters nationwide.
That organization just voted to open its membership to biological males – and the number that drove that decision tells you everything about the leadership behind it.
An estimated five biological males – calling themselves "Transdaughters" – have joined DAR chapters in recent years.
To protect those five, DAR President-General Ginnie Sebastian Storage and her leadership team ran a procedural gauntlet that lasted roughly 12 hours, confined thousands of elderly women to the convention hall with only two bathroom breaks, canceled luncheons, scrapped award ceremonies, and shut down service projects honoring American troops.
The first vote was thrown out entirely after opponents claimed to have spotted evidence of cheating.
A second vote followed – requiring delegates to cast ballots one at a time in a marathon session that left thousands of women exhausted and ready to quit before they could finish voting.
When it was over, the resolution defining "woman" as "born female" lost 1,481 to 984.
Storage's response after the vote: "Thank you all!"
She was thanking the side that wanted men admitted into the very organization founded to give women a society of their own.
Harmeet Dhillon Memo Says DAR Transgender Ban Was Legal All Along
DAR leadership spent months warning members that defining women as biological women would cost the organization its nonprofit status and property-tax exemptions.
It was a scare tactic with no legal basis.
Harmeet Dhillon – Trump's Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights – authored a legal memo demolishing the claim before the vote even took place.
Dhillon's conclusion was unambiguous: the DAR would face a "strong First Amendment defense" against any government enforcement action, and it is "unlikely that the IRS or the District of Columbia would revoke the DAR's non-profit status" over a women-only bylaw.
Private membership organizations have associational rights, and leadership either didn't know that – or didn't care.
The Daughters Advocating for Restoration, the grassroots coalition that organized the resistance, fought for three years just to get this vote on the floor.
Every previous attempt was blocked by the national board, which rejected proposals and threatened members with disciplinary action for discussing the issue.
Laura McDonald, treasurer of the Martha Laird Chapter in Texas and a leader of the Restoration coalition, said the board "bypassed the requirement that 100% of the membership must be notified" by folding the resolution into the regular Continental Congress agenda instead of holding the October 11 special meeting that 90 chapters across 33 states had demanded.
DAR Members Resign Over Transgender Vote at Continental Congress
Institutions that bend to five activists while ignoring thousands of members find accelerating collapse, not balance.
A California delegate named Erin traveled across the country expecting a 250th anniversary celebration of American patriotism – the actual reason DAR exists.
She left empty-handed.
"I didn't buy any merch this year, nothing," she told the New York Post. "I'm not giving to them outside of my required dues. I am not giving them a penny."
She wasn't alone.
Many longtime members now plan to pay only minimum dues, pulling back the voluntary spending and energy that actually sustain organizations like the DAR.
The institution will stay technically alive while hollowing out from within – exactly what happened to the Girl Scouts after they made the same call.
The Daughters Advocating for Restoration aren't finished.
They're still pressing for the October 11 special meeting, arguing the resolution was procedurally hijacked and that the full membership was never properly notified.
"Stay and fight – remember your ancestors didn't give up," member Debra Maggart told fellow Daughters Advocating for Restoration supporters considering resignation.
She's right.
The women who founded DAR in 1890 did so because men refused to share their institutions.
Restoration leaders are betting the next round goes differently.
October 11 is the date to watch – the special meeting national leadership tried to bury inside a regular agenda item.
If it happens, and if the full membership actually gets the vote they were promised, the Daughters who built this organization may yet get their society back.
Sources:
- Laura McDonald, "Statement to The Washington Times," The Washington Times, June 27, 2026.
- Valerie Richardson, "Daughters of American Revolution Assembly Defeats Proposal to Block Transgender Members," The Washington Times, June 27, 2026.
- Mary Margaret Olohan, "Resolution to Preserve Daughters of the American Revolution for Women Only Is Defeated," The Washington Stand, June 29, 2026.
- Skye Graham, "Hundreds Rally to Preserve DAR for Actual Women," The Federalist, June 25, 2026.
- Joy Pullmann, "DAR Betrays Mission by Letting Men Join," The Federalist, June 29, 2026.
- Bethany Mandel, "The Daughters of the American Revolution Are in Revolt," New York Post, June 29, 2026.
- Tyler O'Neil, "Daughters of the American Revolution to Vote on Definition of 'Woman,'" The Daily Signal, June 11, 2026.
