A Federal Charter Is Not What You Think It Is Who Counts as a Daughter? Bloodline, Belonging, and the Limits of Reform in the Daughters of the American Revolution · Part 4 · First published 16 October 2026 Updated 22 October 2026 In three years of argument over DAR membership, one phrase has done a lot of work: congressional charter. In comment threads, I've seen it used to mean that Congress oversees the DAR, that Congress has the final say over its members, or that the char

What Happened on June 26 Who Counts as a Daughter? Bloodline, Belonging, and the Limits of Reform in the Daughters of the American Revolution · Part 2 · First published 12 October 2026 Updated 22 October 2026 On Friday, June 26, 2026, voting delegates to the DAR's 135th Continental Congress spent nearly 12 hours in Constitution Hall, the Society's auditorium, on a single resolution. It asked them to declare that "woman" in the bylaws means a woman shown female on her original

In June 2026, delegates gathered in Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., voted on whether the Daughters of the American Revolution should write a definition of "woman" into its bylaws. The resolution was aimed at transgender women, and it was defeated.