Daughters of the American Revolution not just for biological women

[WienerSchnitzel]

https://www.independentwomen.com/2026/07/13/dar-must-remain-an-organization-for-actual-daughters/

This is a big deal in genealogy and family history circles, especially as America is celebrating its 250th birthday. There are two parallel organisations in the US, Sons of the American Revolution, and Daughters of the American Revolution. In order to join, you have to have researched your family tree and have documentary evidence to link you back to someone who was in the US pre-1776. This is not an easy task but joining SAR or DAR is very prestigious and something a lot of Americans are very proud to achieve.

Neither organisation will accept altered paperwork so if have changed your name and had that changed on your birth certificate. They will not accept people who have been adopted (because of the name change thing). They will not accept step children, or anyone who does not have cast iron proof of descent.

But they have rejected a campaign to limit membership of DAR to actual women. Funnily enough, Sons of the American Revolution does not have an issue with women who think they are men trying to join.

Name changed for this. Thanks, OP, for posting this.

This DAR story is not a brand new story, but, it appears, a reaffirmation of a vote taken in 2022, I believe, which determined that trans-identified males would be allowed to join the DAR. The new vote just re-confirms it. Just more evidence of gender ideology ruining everything it comes into contact with.

But, the DAR has a checkered past anyway. As late as the 1980s, the DAR was still refusing to allow African American women to join as members. My great-grandmother and my grandmother were DAR members. My grandmother resigned her membership when it was confirmed, yet again, that the DAR would refuse to accept African American women. I and my mother have both respected her decision and her legacy, and have not sought membership, because of the DAR's appalling past behavior.

The DAR does now accept all daughters, as I understand it.

So, I could now be member of the DAR, because I have the documented evidence, but if they are accepting men then it makes a sham of the whole organization. I've considered it over the years, but I won't be joining now.

@AcuteGoose they also used to (not sure if they still do) refuse membership to Native American women.

Yes, as I recall, that used to be the case. Of course, when history was taught in the US when the DAR was established (and still was when I was in school) women barely existed, and anyone who wasn't white existed not at all, and certainly couldn't possibly have been involved in any way in the Revolutionary War.

But, I believe they do accept all daughters now. And some men. Who think they are daughters. What a farce.

I am on the UK side of the Atlantic and am only aware of these organisations from a genealogical perspective. I was not aware that they have a discriminatory past but I'm really not surprised given what we know about American society as recently as the 1960s.

They are definitely though doubling down on the definition of "daughters".