A Texas judge has stepped in to stop the national Daughters of the American Revolution from disbanding a local chapter, at least for now, in a dispute that has pulled the 84-year-old organization into a fight over who gets to call themselves a Daughter. The chapter in question, the Martha Laird Chapter, is based in Texas and allows biological women to join while opposing the admission of transgender women.
According to KABB, national DAR leadership voted last month to disband the chapter, citing alleged violations of national bylaws. That decision traces back to October 10, when, as reported by The Daily Signal, Texas District Judge Angela Saucier issued a temporary restraining order on Nov. 2 blocking the dissolution until the underlying case can be resolved. The same report notes the DAR had directed the chapter to dissolve and transfer its property to the Texas DAR by Nov. 9, a deadline the court order has now put on hold.
The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution has pushed back hard on the idea that the vote was about transgender membership at all. The organization told Fox News Digital it voted to disband the local Texas chapter but not because of the group's views on membership, and it says the National Board of Management made its decision under authority established in the national bylaws.
What the National Society Says Drove the Decision
In its own statement, the national society said its decision was based on the Martha Laird Chapter's use of the DAR name and its official chapter leadership, communications, and governance processes to promote a separate advocacy organization's objectives. The group added that its decision was not based on the personal views or advocacy of individual members, and it has stood by the Board's October 10 decision. The national bylaws, the society notes, do not contain a sex-at-birth requirement, and disbanding a chapter does not by itself terminate or suspend the individual DAR memberships of its members.
Lea Patterson, representing the chapter's side of the dispute, sees it differently. She said national DAR leadership tried to silence the women by disbanding their chapter, and that the court protected it during the continuing dispute, according to the Heritage Foundation's legal action center. Patterson also called the court order an important victory for the Martha Laird Chapter and for women who support a women's organization being for women, per the same source, which separately described the chapter as 84 years old.
A Bylaws Fight That Has Been Building for Months
The clash didn't come out of nowhere. The DAR's governing body rejected an initial bylaw proposal to ban transgender women back in February 2025, after the measure was put forward by its Texas chapter, as reported by them. That came two years after the DAR amended its bylaws in 2023 to prohibit discrimination against eligible applicants based on race, religion, and sexual orientation, according to World News Group.
Conservative members within the DAR didn't let the issue drop. World News Group reports that they organized chapters to call for a special October meeting to consider a resolution affirming that membership should be reserved for women who can attest they were female at birth. The Daily Signal reports that at least 68 chapters in 27 states signed a resolution demanding a vote to clarify the bylaws.
The June 2026 membership vote itself is murkier than either side's framing suggests. The national society reported that members rejected the proposed restriction by 1,474 votes against to 981 in favor, while the station's earlier report put the tally at 1,481 to 984 against. Either way, the measure failed, but the dispute over what that vote actually settled, and whether the chapter's subsequent conduct crossed a line, is now what a Texas courtroom will have to sort out.
