It’s Not Political. It’s Not Emotional. It’s Just Inconsistent.

By Amy Van Riper

The Lineage Logic Has to Apply to Sex Too

I’ve been digging into the questions around membership eligibility in hereditary organizations, and I keep coming back to a contradiction that’s too big to ignore. And honestly? It’s not political. It’s not emotional. It’s just inconsistent.

Here’s the issue:

**DAR enforces biological truth for lineage… but relies on legal fiction for sex.**

That combination doesn’t hold up.

Let me show you exactly what I mean, using DAR’s own published statements.

1. DAR’s stance on adoption: Biology is everything.

DAR’s official membership policy explicitly states:

“The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) requires proof of lineal bloodline descent from an ancestor who aided in achieving American Independence. This requirement does not preclude membership for individuals who are adopted; it simply means that adopted children must enter on their bloodline, or lineage of their birth parents, not the lineage of their adopted parents.”

The phrase that really matters is this:

“The patriots’ blood flowed in their veins.”

DAR emphasizes over and over that:

• Lineage is biological, not legal.
• Tradition is rooted in blood, not adoptive paperwork.
• Legal birth certificates do not trump biological reality.

Someone adopted at birth, who holds a state-issued birth certificate naming adoptive parents, is still not allowed to qualify on that line. Even though the law treats them as the natural-born child of those parents, DAR does not.

DAR sums it up like this:

“In fairness to all, every applicant is treated alike and each must prove bloodline descent.”

This part is important, because DAR uses it as a theological foundation for its entire existence:

“To remove the lineal requirement would destroy the meaning of our organization.”

Fair. Clear. Consistent. Lineage is biological reality — not legal documentation.

2. But then comes the contradiction:

Biological males who now identify as women are accepted if they have updated paperwork.

Let’s look at the membership eligibility clause every new member signs:

“Any woman is eligible for membership… provided the applicant is personally acceptable to the Society.”

DAR defines “woman” solely by current legal paperwork — driver’s license, birth certificate, etc. But here’s the problem:

If biological truth is essential for lineage, then why does biological truth suddenly not matter for sex?

• An adopted woman (with a legally accurate birth certificate naming her parents) is rejected because her biology doesn’t match the document.
• A biological male (with a legally amended female marker) is accepted because his document doesn’t match the biology.

One case: Biology > paperwork.

The other case: Paperwork > biology.

That’s the logical fracture.

3. You can’t build an entire organization on bloodline biology…

and then ignore biology when it becomes inconvenient.

DAR’s founding logic is clear:

• Bloodlines matter.
• Biological truth matters.
• Paperwork can be misleading.
• Heritage is defined by birth, not legal status.

But when it comes to the term “woman,” DAR abandons the principle it demands for lineage.

If the organization requires applicants to sign that they are the natural-born descendants of their parents, then logically, it would stand to reason that the organization also requires members to be the natural-born female sex the society was founded for.

But that requirement isn’t enforced. It isn’t even acknowledged.

Even though it is the same issue: What is legal vs. what is biological.

4. And yes — it is absolutely a double standard.

Case A: Adopted women

• Legal birth certificate says they are the natural-born child.
• DAR says “Legal fiction. Biology rules.”
• Excluded.

Case B: Biological males with amended documents

• Legal birth certificate now says they are female.
• DAR says “Legal truth. Biology doesn’t matter.”
• Admitted.

How does this make sense? It doesn’t. Not if biology is the foundation of the organization. Not if DAR claims consistency. Not if lineage truth matters more than law in one case but less in another.

5. This isn’t about exclusion. It’s about coherence.

If DAR wants to modernize membership criteria and admit transgender applicants, that is fully within its rights as a private nonprofit organization. But it needs to openly acknowledge what that change means:

• It breaks with the founding principle of biological lineage.
• It creates a contradiction between how DAR treats inherited identity vs. self-asserted identity.
• It applies two different standards for “truth,” depending on the topic.

You can’t enforce biological reality for ancestry and then ignore biological reality for sex. It’s one standard or the other… otherwise the system has no integrity.

6. I’m not asking to exclude people.

I’m asking for the rules to make sense.

If DAR stands on:

• Biological descent,
• Natural-born status,
• Lineage that “flows in the veins,”

…then the definition of woman should follow the same principle.

Right now, it doesn’t. And that inconsistency is what I find impossible to reconcile.

***UPDATED 12/22/2025*** After Amy posted her analysis titled “You Can’t Have it Both Ways” I reached out to her to thank her for the clarity she provided that I has struggled for months to articulate. She responded with even more insight offering more clarity. Here is what she said:

“I want to add a bit of personal context that may help explain why this issue matters so deeply to me. I am the Executive Director of a nonprofit adoption agency. Adoption is not an abstract concept to me… it is my daily work, my calling, and my responsibility. I work closely with birth mothers making one of the most difficult decisions of their lives.

I am careful to help them understand the permanence of that decision and to reassure them that their child will be fully and irrevocably embraced by their adoptive family. And that isn’t just emotional reassurance… the law reflects it (emphasis added).

In most states, amended birth certificates contain no indication that a child was adopted. Legally and socially, adopted children are treated as if they were born to their adoptive parents. Adoptive parents often work harder and sacrifice more to become parents than many biological parents ever do. These are real families, and these are real children.

Because of that, DAR’s continued exclusion of adopted women… women who are legally and socially daughters in every meaningful sense… has always troubled me.

I ultimately accepted the rationale because lineage societies are rooted in genetics, and I understood that argument even when it was uncomfortable.

What I could not accept was the inconsistency that followed.

When DAR chose to accept amended birth certificates for sex while continuing to dismiss amended birth certificates for adoption, it abandoned its own stated principle.

Biology suddenly mattered in one context but not the other.

Legal documentation was dismissed when it came to lineage but embraced when it came to sex.

That contradiction is what finally pushed me to speak. For me, DAR must do one of two things for me to continue my membership:

1. Stop admitting men, while maintaining the existing lineage standards—even though I personally disagree with the exclusion of adopted women; or

2. Continue admitting men, but also admit adopted women, applying the same reliance on amended documentation consistently. Either option removes the hypocrisy. The solution I believe is right… though I recognize it may be aspirational… is to stop admitting men and admit adopted women.

That would preserve the integrity of a women’s lineage society while correcting a long-standing injustice toward adoptees.

I currently serve as Vice Regent of my chapter. I joined in 2023 and committed myself fully, with the expectation that I would eventually serve as Regent. Given the current climate, I suspect that may no longer happen, and that genuinely saddens me. I love this organization, its history, and its mission. But love doesn’t require silence when core principles are at stake.”