Im a Daughter of the American Revolution battling to keep sons out

I’m a proud descendant of Jane Trail West, an American patriot from South Carolina who furnished critical supplies to the Continental Army during the Revolution.That made me eligible to join the Daughters of the American Revolution — but only after my mother, grandmother, aunts and I documented and defended our link to that remarkable woman.Proving our connection to her demanded months of meticulous genealogical research: We had to locate primary sources, cross-referencing wills, deeds, pension records and supply ledgers, to satisfy the DAR’s exacting standards.The painstaking process deepened our appreciation for the organization’s mission: We joined to honor our national and family legacy in a women’s space created for daughters.Female patriots like Jane remind us that women’s contributions to the founding era were essential, often in ways history overlooks.Like many members, I had assumed the DAR’s identity as a single-sex women’s organization was secure.Last month, I learned I was wrong.At the DAR’s 135th Continental Congress in Washington, DC, delegates voted to reject a resolution that would have clarified something that once seemed obvious: Only biological women are eligible for membership.The defeat means that trans-identifying males can join an organization whose history and very name are built on female lineage and female experience.The DAR was founded in 1890 by women who had been turned away by the Sons of the American Revolution, which explicitly limits membership to men — a group for male lineal descendants of Revolutionary patriots that still exists today.These two organizations were deliberately structured along sex-based lines from the beginning, and there’s no compelling reason to collapse that distinction now.Lineal descent is biological: The only way a human comes into a familial lineage is through the physical body of their biological birth.The rigorous proof DAR requires — a documented bloodline connection across generat...