Dear Everyone:

I am the Scoutmaster of a Scouts BSA Troop to which my daughter and 26 other young women belong. We have 18 adult involved, and the majority are women. I am glad there is so much interest in this topic, because it reflects that youth service organizations are as relevant and important as ever. Otherwise there would not be such passion in the discussion.

The BSA is no longer a reasonable proxy for any particular political or religious point of view. It has culturally returned to what it was in the late 70’s — a non-denominational and non-discriminatory organization helps young people make good ethical choices. The BSA is no longer a good organization to attack for cultural reasons. The right and the left vigorously attack us for either “abandoning values” or “stealing” female membership and perceived accompanying financial support away from other youth service organizations. Both are wrong for fundamental reasons beyond the scope of this posting.

What I do know is that other youth service organizations are expending significant professional time and treasure attacking the BSA as a matter of formal organization policy. The BSA is not responding in like manner, preferring to provide the young women of America an option to select a different option, if they wish. And what is the result in the first 60 days? 1,800 new Scouts BSA troops. And, we now have over 90 thousand girls enrolled in our Cub and Scouts BSA programs.

The BSA will continue to fulfill its mission for young men and women long after the current disputes are forgotten. It will continue to urge young people to develop skills to that they can choose what is good and decent for them, their families and our Country. For those who are disappointed that the BSA has re-focused on its essential mission, I ask you to re-examine your views.

Our girls and volunteer committee do not care who you are or what you believe. They welcome you unconditionally to fully explore the great outdoors and learn skills that girls can use to guide their lives.

Mom of 2 boys (both Scouts) and 2 girls (one now a Cub scout, other may be soon). Oldest daughter has also been a Daisy and is now a Brownie. I was in Girl Scouts as a child.

I don't care for the Girls Scouts programming at all. The entire Daisy curriculum is about how to be a well-socialized sweet little girl. Art projects about how to be a good friend and helping around the house. It VERY much enforces gender roles, right down to the fact that all of the characters are FLOWERS. Barf. (And I say this as a mother of a flower-named child.) Cookie sales are pretty much all that matters and then it's BS about self esteem. Whatever, you're rewarding them with stuffed elephants and purple backpacks.

Scouts (formerly Boy Scouts, now BSA) is a very different program that truly focuses on working toward goals, broader responsibility, respect, and leadership, and just so much more. As a PP noted, girls have always been part of Scouts, just not able to earn merit badges and progress, and now they can. Our GS daughter joined Scouts BSA the second she could, because she saw all of the great stuff her brothers were doing, as opposed to the cute little coloring sheets and craft projects she was doing.

Scouts have long been co-ed in other countries. This isn't new, just new here. I for one am thrilled that my daughters can be part of Scouts BSA.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our experience with Girl Scouts has stunk. The whole program has changed its focus from exploring to education. They do lane activities in a church basement and have to answer questions from their handout. Like reading comprehension questions. It’s so focused on protocol and procedures you can see it’s neofascist roots. I’m completely turned off. I do know some troops are different, but we’re done.

We are one year into it and already tired of it. Reams of material but you can never get any real help. Cookies sales last forever. Not enough outdoor emphasis but a lot of fake girl power BS with pink flowers printed on a hand out.

Oh yes. And when you say: "A girl can be anything she wants!" of course the first thing a girl will think is, "Oh, could I not? Is there an otherwise?" It cues them in and reinforces their second-class status. But if makes us feel good.

I don’t think that social science backs you up on that, as far as how girls experience that statement. But the sad fact is that girls are still receiving messages (explicit and implicit) that they are not fully welcome in all spaces. You only need to look at the stats for drop-off in female participation in tech, as girls grow older, to see that. Or maybe talk to some women in the military about the harassment they experience? Or the DC middle schooler who started the “raise your hand!l program for girls after seeing boy predominate at an extracurricular event at her school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our experience with Girl Scouts has stunk. The whole program has changed its focus from exploring to education. They do lane activities in a church basement and have to answer questions from their handout. Like reading comprehension questions. It’s so focused on protocol and procedures you can see it’s neofascist roots. I’m completely turned off. I do know some troops are different, but we’re done.

We are one year into it and already tired of it. Reams of material but you can never get any real help. Cookies sales last forever. Not enough outdoor emphasis but a lot of fake girl power BS with pink flowers printed on a hand out.

Oh yes. And when you say: "A girl can be anything she wants!" of course the first thing a girl will think is, "Oh, could I not? Is there an otherwise?" It cues them in and reinforces their second-class status. But if makes us feel good.

Anonymous wrote:I am always wary of extreme, absolute statements like: “the organization is dead”, “total money grab” and “second class citizen”. These usually evidence a less-informed person pushing a personal priority. Instead, I look for the good in people and organizations like those discussed above. Yes, GSUSA has a well-developed business plan that both funds their organization and teaches girls business skills. Yes, BSA has the outdoors as its principal classroom and achieves at the highest level in that topic. They are dramatically s different organizations in almost every respect. Learn what is best for your child by looking into multiple options rather than following suspect and harsh judgements.

It's a bunch of fundamentalist religious weirdos who are incensed that SOME Scout troops are opened to girls and gay families. All that matters to them is that they can continue to control BSA and push fundamentalist religious views on other Cub Scout and Boy Scout troops.

BSA is letting existing troops remain as-is: they can continue to be single-gender or aligned with particular religions. They can also exclude people not belonging to their church. However, the big change is that those religious organizations can no longer tell other Troops what to do (i.e., exclude gay families or girls). That's what they are pissed off about.

Given that a single Troop rarely interacts with other troops, it's the equivalent of throwing a total hissy fit. This is why the Mormon Church is leaving BSA and forming their own church-only "boys program" - BSA leadership revolted and told the Mormons that they couldn't decide policies for non-Mormon troops. The Mormons didn't like this.

-DC Dad-to-Be

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:clearly Boy Scouts is struggling with #s.

let's no allow anyone gay
let's not allow any gay leaders

Oh crap - we need money - I know - let's let girls in. They would love to join our exclusive organization.

Letting in gay leaders and boys meant they lost the Catholic and Mormon churches. That is why they started worrying about numbers.

No, other way around. And we never would have joined it otherwise.

cburkhardt wrote:Hello. I am the Scoutmaster of DC’s Scouts BSA Troop 248 for Girls. I conducted an exhaustive thread earlier this year and answered over 80 questions from people about the BSA now including all-girl troops. If you are interested in learning about the program you can look at that thread or go to our web site at www.ScoutsBsaDcGirls.org.

A few clarifications about things raised in this thread. Scouts BSA is not Co-Ed. The commenter who opposes girls being able to participate can rest assured that the all-Boy troops will continue on as before. The BSA decided it would be an all-welcoming organization and has ceased embracing or enforcing the religious dogma of any particular faith. So yes, gays and girls are welcome. People offput by this have other choices, and that is great. We just determined that it did not well-serve American youth to continue some of these past policies. Product sales in Scouts BSA are up to the individual Scout unit. In our troop in DC we do not do any product sales - preferring to have our girls spend 100% of their time doing program. We price our dues to cover all costs and have community sources to offset dues for under-resourced families. We are growing each week. We are now up to 26 girls organized into three “patrols” and have a volunteer committee of 18. All Souls Episcopal church is the organization that makes this possible and is where we meet twice a month on Saturday mornings. If you have an interested girl, stop by with her at our next meeting on April 13 from 10 to Noon. This is a splendid group of girls who have fully-embraced this wonderful program.

Thank you for your great work and online outreach. I am an Eagle Scout in a position of service to my country, living in DC. My wife is pregnant with our first child (a boy) and we look forward to participating in co-ed Scouting. Even before we knew the biological gender of our child, we were so happy to hear that BSA was opening to girls.

Girls have ALWAYS been a part of BSA. The sisters of Boy Scouts always attended meetings, camp outs, jamborees, summer camps, and service events. They existed, but they couldn't earn the ranks and merit badges. I'm thrilled to see girls and young women get those same opportunities for advancement, adventure, and leadership that BSA can offer.

-DC Dad-to-Be

Anonymous wrote:Don't worry, soon there will be no actual boys in BSA because girls will have made it totally unappealing to them.

BSA is likely to disappear - that is true. Factors include:



- declining membership over decades (societal change)

- the Mormon church is withdrawing from BSA at the end of 2019. This may seem insignificant, but Mormons make up 24% of current BSA membership.

- several class-action lawsuits against BSA are under way; these suits are modeled on the child abuse lawsuits against the Catholic church. In some cases, the same national law firms are involved in both types of class actions.

- the girl scouts has sued BSA for allowing girls in scouting (which includes cub scouts - which are also now co-ed).

Finally - PP's post may be offensive to you, but there will, in fact, be some families who oppose making BSA co-ed, and who will not participate as a result.

It remains to be see if making BSA co-ed results in a net gain, or net loss, of members.

... sorry, thumb slipped and hit send. Meant to say it’s gotten old.

I am mom with kids in both BSA and GS who volunteers with both. I support both programs but I am really irked by CBurkhardt’s comment above that young women recognize BSA as a “first-ranking youth program of tremendous relevance to them”—your comment implies both a competition (ranking) and an attitude of superiority. If you want to welcome girls, try not to man-splain to them what is relevant to them and imply that historically and predominantly male institutions are superior to historically and predominantly female institutions. The message that I’m receiving loud and clear is that you think you’re better than us. We girls have been getting that message for a while, and it’s o

I am always wary of extreme, absolute statements like: “the organization is dead”, “total money grab” and “second class citizen”. These usually evidence a less-informed person pushing a personal priority. Instead, I look for the good in people and organizations like those discussed above. Yes, GSUSA has a well-developed business plan that both funds their organization and teaches girls business skills. Yes, BSA has the outdoors as its principal classroom and achieves at the highest level in that topic. They are dramatically s different organizations in almost every respect. Learn what is best for your child by looking into multiple options rather than following suspect and harsh judgements.

I am the OP and thank cburkhardt for her information. I missed this evolution of scouting because my children are too young and I have been out of scouting for ten years. As someone’s who be benefitted greatly from all girls education and scouting, I find this interesting.

Total money grab enrolling girls.

GSA has silver and gold awards for those who continue with the program. Some of those gold words are more challenging than Eagle Scout, some are less. You get out of it what you put into it.

For those if you complaining about your troop, start your own! Girl scouts is very leader dependent, and some are good, some are bad. We are fortunate our high school daughter is in an excellent troop. Very laid-back, very fun, and she has worked hard. Has already completed silver, and on her way towards gold.

Anonymous wrote:Girls in BSA are segregated second class citizens while in GSA they are the only reason for existing.

I feel like this is an unfair assessment. I think that the girls and boys are together in cub scouts. My son has girls in his den. I think it is only when they move up to boy scouts that they have separate boy and girl troops. I know that at all of our scout events girls and boys have worked side by side. IN fact, girls won almost all the top spots at our pinewood derby and the boys cheered them on.

Anonymous wrote:I was a Girl Scout Brownie through Senior. My DS is working on his Eagle Scout rank now. I loved being a GS, but Boy Scouts is the far superior program.

GS mom, BS son. GS camping and camps for Cub Scout age kids are far superior.