Who Counts as a Daughter? - Breaking News
Updated: 4 hours ago
A Chapter Disbanded the Day Before Its Meeting Date
Who Counts as a Daughter? · First published 12 October 2026 · This post will be updated as documents surface.
Updated: 22 October 2026
On Saturday, 10 October 2026, the DAR's National Board of Management voted to disband the Martha Laird Chapter of Mount Pleasant, Texas, the chapter at the center of the campaign to "restore" women-only membership. This post lays out what the record shows so far, what the two sides say, and what remains unknown. Claims are documented unless labeled otherwise.
What happened
A letter to the chapter's members from the Society's Organizing Secretary General, dated 10 October, reports that a resolution to disband the chapter passed by a two-thirds vote. It states that the chapter's actions violated Article XIX, Section 4 of the bylaws. It does not describe those actions.¹
That section of the bylaws provides that the Board may reprimand, suspend, or disband a chapter found to have violated the Society's rules or acted in a way that discredits the organization.²
The letter outlines the consequences of disbandment. The chapter's members have until 9 November to become members-at-large or transfer to another chapter, if one accepts them, and any dues already paid to the chapter are to be refunded.¹ Individual members will keep their DAR membership as long as they transfer their membership by 9 November.
What the Society says
Asked by Fox News, the Society confirmed the vote but said it wasn't about the chapter's position on membership. According to its statement, the Board found that chapter officers had used the chapter's name, leadership positions, communications, and governance processes to advance the goals of a separate advocacy organization, and that this use of chapter authority and resources, not the views advocated, discredited the Society. The statement said the decision was not based on members' views about eligibility, their efforts to propose bylaw changes, or their right to advocate for changes in governance.³ The statement didn't name the advocacy organization.
What the restoration campaign says
The moderator of the campaign's public Facebook group called the decision disappointing but "not unexpected" and said the campaign's work had "only just begun."⁴ Commenters in that group raised questions the Society hasn't publicly answered: whether the chapter received written notice of charges and a hearing, as other sections of Article XIX provide, and when the Board's minutes will be posted.²
Why this chapter
The Martha Laird Chapter has anchored the campaign organization from the start. It submitted the September 2024 bylaw proposal that the Board rejected in February 2025.⁵ It led a March 2025 letter-writing campaign to President Trump, joined by five other chapters, asking him to look into the Society's leadership.⁶ Laura McDonald, the campaign's founder and most-quoted spokesperson, has been identified in the press as a chapter officer.⁷ And the campaign incorporated as a nonprofit in late 2025, with McDonald on its board of directors.⁸
That history supports both readings of Saturday's vote. To the Society, it is a record of chapter machinery being used for an outside organization. To the campaign's supporters, it is a record of a chapter that lost internal votes, took its case to Congress and the White House, and is now being punished for it.
On the evidence publicly available so far, I can't tell you which reading the Board's own deliberations support, because the deliberations aren't publicly accessible.
The timing
The vote came the day before 11 October 2026, the date the chapters had requested for a special meeting, which was denied, and the Society's 136th birthday.⁹ It was the annually scheduled weekend for the fall National Board of Management weekend at the DAR headquarters, and where important business, like this, is typically conducted
How it was covered
The coverage followed a now-familiar path. Fox News broke the story on 11 October. The New York Post republished it that evening. Commentary sites followed within a day.³ ¹⁰ One of those pieces quoted the Board's language, calling a proposal "not to be suitable for inclusion in the bylaws," as if it came from Saturday's action. It actually comes from the February 2025 rejection.¹¹ As far as I can find, no wire service or national newspaper has reported the disbandment.
What we don't know yet
What specific conduct the Board relied on.
Whether the chapter received any notice before the vote.
What the Board's minutes will show.
Whether other chapters that requested the special meeting face similar action.
I'll update you as I learn more.
For background on the June vote, see Post 2.
Update, October 22, 2026. After rereading Article XIX in the Society's 2025 Bylaws. Section 4 reads as summarized above: the Board may reprimand, suspend, or disband a chapter for violating the Society's rules or for "action discrediting the organization." Section 7 requires a two-thirds ballot vote for any decision under the article, consistent with the letter's report of a two-thirds vote.¹² On the notice question raised in the comments, the text is less settled than either side has suggested. The notice-and-hearing procedure in Sections 2 and 3 is written for charges against an individual member; Section 4, the chapter provision, prescribes no procedure of its own. The bylaws leave open whether the member procedure extends to chapters. The restoration campaign's legal memorandum, released on social media 20 October 2026, alleges a pattern of retaliation against members who supported the special meeting, but it does not discuss the disbandment.¹³
Notes
Marguerite Hogan Fritsch, Organizing Secretary General, NSDAR, to Members of the Martha Laird Chapter, NSDAR (6071TX), 10 October 2026, as posted publicly and quoted in note 3.
Sharon Atkins and others, comments on Bonnie Morgan Dennis, "On October 10, 2026, the NSDAR National Board of Management voted to disband the Martha Laird Chapter . . . ," Facebook, Daughters Advocating for Restoration group, October 10–12, 2026, https://www.facebook.com/groups/1659132851538607.
CJ Womack, "Daughters of the American Revolution Axes Chapter That Challenged Transgender Membership," Fox News, 11 October 2026, https://www.foxnews.com/media/daughters-american-revolution-axes-chapter-challenged-transgender-membership.
Bonnie Morgan Dennis, "On October 10, 2026, the NSDAR National Board of Management voted to disband the Martha Laird Chapter . . . ," Facebook, Daughters Advocating for Restoration group, 10 October 2026, https://www.facebook.com/groups/1659132851538607.
Kendall Tietz, "Daughters of the American Revolution Votes to Continue to Allow Transgender Members," Fox News, 12 February 2025, https://www.foxnews.com/media/daughters-american-revolution-votes-continue-allow-transgender-members.
High Places. “Daughters of the American Revolution Chapters Plead with Trump to Save Org from Trans Radicals.” True Daughters of the Revolution (blog), 18 March 2025, updated 24 March 2025. https://truedaughtersoftherevolution.wordpress.com/2025/02/26/women-flee-daughters-of-the-american-revolution-after-it-admits-men/ [Reprints the Daily Wire’s 18 March 2025, report (Katie Jerkovich) on a letter to President Trump from the Martha Laird Chapter and five endorsing chapters in five states, calling on him to “shine a light on what has happened within the ranks of the DAR.” The letter says leadership “admonished members not to speak about it and threatened them with disciplinary action.” Site update: as of 23 March,157 women had signed, representing 36 states, 99 chapters, and 50 former members or resigned officers.]
Valerie Richardson, "Daughters of American Revolution Assembly Defeats Proposal to Block Transgender Members," Washington Times, 27 June 2026, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/jun/27/daughters-american-revolution-defeats-proposal-block-transgender/.
Rory McDonald, "Non Profit Governance," The Will of the Assembly (blog), 11 August 2026, https://daughtersadvocatingrestoration.org/non-profit-creation-documents/.
Katy Grimes, "Daughters of the American Revolution to Vote on Definition of 'Woman' over Transgender Policy," California Globe, 17 June 2026. https://californiaglobe.com/fr/daughters-of-the-american-revolution-to-vote-on-definition-of-woman-over-transgender-policy/.
Fox News, "Daughters of the American Revolution Axes Chapter That Challenged Transgender Membership," New York Post, 11 October 2026, https://nypost.com/2026/10/11/us-news/daughters-of-the-american-revolution-axes-chapter-that-challenged-transgender-membership/; Jimmy Brown, "A Texas Chapter Pushed Back, and the DAR Dissolved It," Patriot Daily Wire, 12 October 2026, https://patriotdailywire.com/dar-disbands-martha-laird-chapter-texas/.
Daniel Greenfield, Frontpage Mag, 11 October 2026, https://www.frontpagemag.com/daughters-of-the-american-revolution-disbands-chapter-for-trying-to-keep-trannies-out/.
National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, Bylaws of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (2025), art. XIX, secs. 1–4, 7, pp. 41–42.
Palmer Williams, Brandon Smith, and Andy Wilson, Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak PLLC, to Daughters Advocating for Restoration Executive Committee, memorandum, "Legal Implications of Restricting Daughters of the American Revolution Membership Eligibility to Biological Females," October 12, 2026, released October 20, 2026, on Daughters Advocating for Restoration Facebook page.
