Swimmer and heroic defender of women sports against radical trans activism, Riley Gaines, poses for photo at the NFRW convention with Hattie Bryant, who supports the grassroots effort to get the 85-year-old women's organization to stipulate that only real women can be voting members. Gaines wore the shirt – closely tied to the victorious upstart "4 from the floor" slate of conservative candidates led by Julie Harris – in her speech to NFRW delegates (Photo: Hattie Bryant)
Call it a triumph of "flyover America" over East Coast liberalism, of red-state conservatives over blue-state establishment Republicans cowed by the left.
A win for truth and common sense over lies and propaganda, by the grassroots over compromised and gun-shy elites.
Or perhaps, most importantly, a victory for real American women over fake, biologically male "trans women" invading their spaces.
Grassroots conservative women scored two remarkable victories Saturday at the biennial convention of the National Federation of Republican Women in Oklahoma City, with four non-endorsed candidates sweeping into office against a heavily favored slate of officially backed candidates with built-in advantages.
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The upstart NFRW women championed a successful resolution stating that only genuine women should be voting members in the 85-year-old women's organization – overcoming a concerted effort by the outgoing leadership to block the measure from being voted on at the convention.
New NFRW president-elect Julie Harris of Arkansas (screenshot/NFRW website)
In the David-vs.-Goliath upset, Julie Harris of Arkansas became the federation's new president-elect, defeating establishment nominee Vanessa LaFranco of New Jersey. Harris' victory was widely speculated to be a landslide, according to several convention attendees who spoke with WND, but strangely the exact vote tally was not published. Harris was endorsed by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the state's junior U.S. Senator, Tom Cotton.
"I am immensely grateful for the confidence that the NFRW members have in me and my vision for our organization," Harris said, according to a release put out by the women's group. "The NFRW has an unwavering commitment to Republican values, as affirmed by our convention’s vote in support of our organization continuing its 85-year history as a women's-only organization."
The latter comment refers to the pro-women reform issue that dominated the convention, but which had been stymied by NFRW's outgoing president, Eileen Sobjack and other group leaders fearful of leftist legal repercussions. Grassroots activists fighting against a "trans" redefinition of NFRW's mission passed out pink fliers saying, "VOTE FOR WOMEN – XX NOT XY," and pink sashes with the same message referring to the pair of X chromosomes determining female sex.
Transsexual activists are at war with that simple truth, maintaining that sex is merely "assigned at birth" – i.e., girls are not girls, and boys are not boys, based on their anatomy. The trans movement claims that "gender," separate from sex, is socially constructed and varies according to one's self-perceived "gender identity," with an ever-expanding array of available "genders" with which a person can self-identify. As one pro-trans "teen" site puts it: "Gender identity is how a person feels and who they know them self to be when it comes to their gender."
While trans activists, relying on this LGBT ideology, defiantly chant, "Trans women are women," conservatives and many feminists counter that there are just two "genders" (read: sexes): male and female, and that men cannot be (or become) real women, and vice versa.
Flier passed out at NFRW convention by women fighting to preserve the group as it was created: for women only (photo: Deborah Tilden)
Avoiding taking action
Years earlier, NFRW leaders had promised to tackle the issue of male "trans women" trying joining the group as supposed "women." Deborah Tilden and Laura Carlson, two NFRW members who were active in supporting both the women-only-as-members resolution and the "4 on the floor" team of opposition candidates in Oklahoma City, pointed to the 2021 NFRW convention in Orlando, where a man identifying as the opposite sex from California tried to be seated as a voting member.
"We just kept waiting for something to be done, but nothing happened," Tilden told WND in a phone interview. Two years later, as pressure mounted among women to preserve NFRW's integrity as a group representing Republicans who are actually women ("from conception," as supporters say), many reformers were shocked to learn that Sobjack had sought a legal opinion backing up her contention that officially limiting membership to biological women would invite a costly lawsuit against the group.
WND obtained a portion of the legal opinion from a NFRW activist; it was sent to state presidents but most members never saw it. Tilden faulted Sobjack for getting legal advice from the organization's attorney rather than constitutional legal experts from pro-liberty groups like Alliance Defending Freedom that have decades of experience defending conservatives' right to live by their own creed.
Flier passed out at NFRW convention by opposition slate of candidates, led by Julie Harris. Note "#vote4fromthefloor" slogan referencing their grassroots, underdog campaign against the official slate of candidates, who enjoyed many advantages in the race (photo/Deborah Tilden)
Riley Gaines sides with 'XX Not XY' opposition
With polls showing Republicans viewing the aggressive transgender agenda and Biden's and the Democrats' promotion of it as one of their top concerns, it is odd that a GOP-linked women's organization would oppose efforts to protect its own historic female identity.
Ironically, NFRW leaders brought in Riley Gaines – seen as a hero by millions of Americans for her stand fighting to keep men (with all their natural physical advantages) identifying as "trans women" from competing in women's sports – to address the convention in Oklahoma City. But they probably did not foresee Gaines effectively siding with the opposition's grassroots effort to keep the organization a women-only space.
At her Sunday speech at the convention, Gaines wore a pink t-shirt with the message "Real XX" and met with proponents of the resolution defending against trans subversion of NFRW's mission. The shirt was made by Florida activist and "4 on the floor" supporter Hattie Bryant, who the day before posed for a photo of herself with Gaines holding her shirt (see photo above).
Republican women's group let men be in leadership?
As WND first reported to a national audience Sept. 4, NFRW's outgoing president, Eileen Sobjack, had opposed the real-women-only change to the group's bylaws – out of fear that the federation could be sued by pro-transgender and pro-LGBT legal activists. WND further reported that members of the NFRW-endorsed slate of candidates, including presidential nominee LaFranco, supported a man who identifies as a "trans woman" to be on the board of their New Jersey chapter. The man, who now goes by Pam Daniels, is an LGBT activist who – back when he identified with his actual male sex – worked in the administration of Republican New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman.
The NJFRW nominated Daniels, a biological man, for its "Woman of the Year" award in 2019 – an astonishing development given that opposition to men identifying as "trans women" occupying women's spaces and dominating women's sports has become one of the hottest issues among Republicans across the nation. In contrast, the Democratic Party enthusiastically embraces all aspects of the transgender activist agenda; in fact, the Biden administration supports "gender transitions" for youth (see Tucker Carlson's X interview on that subject at bottom).
At publication time, Daniels is still listed as a "Member [of the] Board of Governors, NJ Federation of Republican Women" on his LinkedIn page.
Many NFRW members and delegates at the convention were not aware that a man-turned-faux-"woman" had been allowed to gain a leadership role in the NFRW-N.J. chapter until WND reported it. Popular conservative activist Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA picked up the WND story in his widely viewed daily broadcast, giving it further reach.
Sobjack, through an NFRW spokeswoman, declined to be interviewed for WND's initial story, to address the controversy and her opposition to a women's-only policy for active members at the organization. The group allows men as non-voting, associate members.
Biological male Pam Daniels sits on the board of the New Jersey Federation of Republican Women, according to his LinkedIn page (screenshot/YouTube)
Tamara Scott, a veteran Iowa pro-life, pro-family and Republican activist who gave the nominating speech for Harris at the NFRW convention, credited WND with publicizing the issue and helping galvanize the opposition to biological men joining the respected GOP women's group, saying: "WND's coverage of events concerning the NFRW gave wings to the truth and allowed so many more delegates to understand what had transpired and the action needed to correct course in protecting women and the Federation’s identity as a women’s organization."
Scott is a Republican National Committeewoman from Iowa, but noted that she was speaking for herself and not in her official role.
Stacked deck and dubious tactics still failed to yield establishment wins
The NFRW deck was heavily stacked against the four victorious conservative candidates who ran from the floor using the hashtag "#vote4fromthfloor." For example, they were not given the NFRW's delegate list for outreach purposes in their campaign, a common courtesy in such institutional contests.
Meanwhile, LaFranco and the six other nominees picked by the "Nominations Committee" received regular, glowing endorsements over the group's social media and communications channels. The same networks had no information about their competitors.
Similarly, even though two resolutions supporting real women only as voting members at NFRW were properly put forth for consideration at the convention, the leadership (led by Sobjack) intentionally left them out of the delegates' convention packets as part of its attempt to block any vote on them.
Tilden said it came out that Sobjack herself had vetoed the pro-real-women resolutions, something she lacked the authority to do. A vote challenging the standing rule barring the resolution's consideration was approved with "a unanimous roar," Tilden told WND.
"All we wanted was to have women's voices heard on this issue," she said, "not women sitting in an office building far away making the decision for us."
'Sisters United in Courage'
Tilden said the NFRW women and allied advocates who made up the team defending women's integrity – which started calling itself "Sisters United in Courage" – spent weeks honing their parliamentary skills so they could win the battle to consider the "XX Not XY" resolution, and they ultimately prevailed.
Carlson, whose letter to NFRW leaders excoriating the D.C.-area-based leadership for thwarting the effort to protect the group for women, said the "resounding victory of the '4 on the floor' candidates and their pro-women resolution would not have happened without the WND article." She said the article "spread like wildfire throughout conservative activists' networks, alerting our people to this problem," with many activists re-posting it on their networks.
Carlson, who runs a pro-life ministry in Iowa to unwed mothers, said the entire grassroots effort was bathed in prayer, telling WND, "I have never prayed more at a convention in my life," including Christian conferences she has attended. "God had His hand on it," she said.
NFRW's 'Official Slate' of candidates endorsed by the national organization for election at the upcoming biennial conference – four of whom were defeated by the "Four from the floor" candidates. New Jersey Federation of Republican Women's Vanessa LaFranco is a center, endorsed for president. LaFranco cheered on biological male Pam Daniels' nomination for the NJFRW's 'Woman of the Year' in 2019 (see next graphic).
Biological man and self-styled 'trans woman' Pam Daniels exults in Facebook post after being nominated for 'Woman of the Year' in 2019 by the New Jersey branch of the National Federation of Republican Women. Vanessa LaFranco, the establishment candidate to become the NFRW's next national president, "loved" Daniels' post with a heart emoji. LaFranco lost in an upset to Arkansas conservative Julie Harris (screenshot/Facebook)
IMPORTANT NOTE TO WND READERS: Believe it or not, today's high priests of climate-change apocalypse are correct in predicting that in just a few short years, the earth will become miserable, wretched and almost uninhabitable by human beings. But the grim future they envision won't come about because of "catastrophic climate change," but rather, because of the implementation of their completely insane and truly catastrophic agenda.
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