That DAR clusterfiasco

You may have read about the Daughters of the American Revolution brouhaha over a proposal to limit membership to those who can prove the birth certificates that denote them as female reflect their sex as observed at birth. Specifically,

“Resolved, That in Article III, Section 1 of the Bylaws, the term ‘woman’ shall be understood to clearly mean a woman who was born female, and therefore, individuals who were born male shall not be eligible for membership; transgender women shall not be eligible for membership; and men who have their birth certificates changed from male to female shall not be eligible for membership.”

It failed by a 3-2 margin at Continental Congress, where, thanks to evidence of credentials passing to enable repetitive voting, a vote by one member at a time was taken. This took hours, with no meal breaks. A friend present told me it wasn’t true that no one could leave to use the restroom without leaving the meeting and not being readmitted, but it was still an ordeal. Also, a special meeting to vote on this in October had been triggered, but the matter was pushed up to Continental Congress, the propriety of which is still the subject of a scrap.

The original proposal included the language “The applicant attests that her submitted birth certificate is a true record of her biological, female sex and biological parentage. Signatures of endorsement on applications are optional.”

This is all part of an initiative begun three years ago to make sure DAR is an organization that does not illegally discriminate. That infamous denial of Constitution Hall to Marian Anderson decades ago was actually made by Hall management regarding not opening the Hall on Easter, but the stigma lingers. It hasn’t helped that DAR membership has been exploited by snooty women to remain snooty. As you can see, however, they’ve let in the likes of me. And part of the initiative has been to search out more African-American and Native American patriots and encourage applications under them.

That said, over two President General administrations, the question of potential Daughters not born female has been fumbled in an embarrassing manner. Word went out that the nondiscrimination efforts would include “transgender women,” individual Chapters would no longer be able to vote on incoming members, and we were all supposed to keep quiet about it. General said they had a legal opinion that, should DAR discriminate against transgender applicants, we could lose our 501(c)3 tax exemptions because we would run afoul of antidiscrimination laws.

I wasn’t the only Daughter with a legal background who called shenanigans on this, which I did locally. The Bostock decision only applies to employment, and there’s a history of admitting transgender members into women’s organizations having been done voluntarily and not as a matter of law. Nobody would produce a copy of that legal opinion, which made it all the more fishy.

A DAR Chapter in Texas began a campaign to get X number of Chapters representing X number of states to endorse a call for a vote on a bylaw amendment (the second one above). One of my Chapter’s members made a motion that we endorse this. Most of us considered this a solution in search of a problem. We’re one of the San Francisco Chapters, where if anyone not ready for prime time to apply, it would be here.

I learned from a friend in the Central Valley, who, like myself, is a member of both Daughters of Known Troublemakers lineage societies, that there were four transitioned Daughters in all, none of whom she knew to be problem children. In fact, one was serving as Vice Regent (VP) of her Chapter to those women’s satisfaction. We talked about how birth certificates these days can be amended without proof of surgery, which we agreed portended trouble. Still … solution in search of a problem.

Meanwhile, the “Daughters for Restoration” were circulating some really, really nasty cartoon memes that looked like radical dyke separatist propaganda. This turned off my local gals even more. At a meeting I missed because I was traveling, my gals voted to refer the motion to a committee for further study. Eventually, the member who made the motion said she would like to withdraw it, which put the Chapter Parliamentarian through her paces as regards crossing Ts and dotting Is. And that Parliamentarian was yours truly. I figured out how it could be done with everyone saving face, but the moving member never showed up (and eventually transferred to another Chapter). Our committee did a really thorough job, recommending against signing on for reasons that included dodging a potential San Francisco public relations mess. They got props from the State Parliamentarian. I got props from my Chapter Regent for having figured it out. We were done, and happy.

The controversy is still alive, because of the voting mess, including whether an October special meeting is still required.

I did make snarky remarks in private about the origins of this campaign. I speculated that some Texas Daughter came home one day to find her husband going through her closet and saying he wanted to be a Daughter too. According to the gossip, I wasn’t far off.

Allegedly, this Texas Daughter came home one day to find her husband in bed with another woman. Apparently she did divorce him, and rumor has it she took him to the cleaners. Some time after that, allegedly, he decided to transition. I’m not sure whether he then wanted to join DAR, but hell hath no fury like a woman scorned—particularly a “trans widow,” which this gal technically isn’t.

We do have information on the dubious legal opinion that started this, as one was provided to the membership at Continental Congress. There’s a rebuttal that Harmeet Dhillon sent to General, but that was not provided to the membership. She’s the San Francisco gal now Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. Her opinion just might have been relevant …

The legal opinion shared was from Samuel Bagenstos. Who is he? you might ask. Well, he’s a law professor at the University of Michigan who as general counsel to the Department of Health and Human Services under President Joe Biden, as the department advocated for experimental transgender medical interventions. His U.Mich. biography notes that he drafted and issued “major rules” on “the treatment of LGBTQ+ kids in the foster care system.”

So, did DAR fall, or was she pushed? The previous President General looked out of her element when speaking on video about the new affirmation of accepting transgender applicants. The new President General posted a “heart” emoji in response to one of the “Transdaughters” thanking the assembly for their vote.

Now, I know my sample size is very small, and consists of transsexual women who are middle aged and above. OGs, if you will. Still, I don’t know of any severe early-onset gender dysphoria survivors who would describe themselves with a word that calls them trans first and women second. Is that a tell? At the very least, it suggests the best course of action would have been laissez faire: not calling attention to potential membership, not while we’re talking four members out of 190,000. If that philandering husband did join, we’re once again talking about midlife transitioners likely to be AGPs and mucking stuff up.

It’s possible the new, slipshod standards for amending birth certificate sex markers might force the issue at some point anyway. It might be necessary to screw the honest transsexuals to keep out anyone unlikely to serve in their Chapters well and unobtrusively. That would be a pity, and another unfortunate result of the gender theory madness that arose in the 1990s.

There are further articles on the whole mess at The Federalist and the Daily Signal, if you’re curious.