Boy Scouts not adequately serving needs of transgender kids

The BBQ Pit
1

Please excuse my stream of consciousness type of ranting here.

I’m a leader with my local Scouts BSA Troop (aka Boy Scouts) and I’m frustrated about the failure of my organization (including me), other local troops and the larger organization to support transgendered youth.

Yes, the BSA is a conservative organization, and usually has to be dragged kicking and screaming into the current millennium. But this is not entirely their fault, they didn’t really help, but locally we have a lot of discretion into how we run our troops. The program, though, is actually very nice, great opportunities for kids to do something other than sports that teaches life skills, gets them out of the house and off the phones, and lets the kids lead rather than be led by old people.

I know of 3 scouts who identify as transgendered or are questioning their gender identity. Scout #1 is on the way to aging out of the program, less than a year away from earning Eagle. MtF transitioning, we are a boys troop, there is no option to have a girl as a member. The “solution” was essentially DADT, leave everything as it was, the scout finishes their time with us, gets the Eagle, and goes on with life after scouts. It worked in a certain sense of the word but leaves me feeling like we cheated her out of her identity because we literally cannot change the gender of a member to female and let that person stay a member of a Boy’s troop. This is an arbitrary rule, other Scouting organizations worldwide are co-ed and their world’s haven’t come to an end.

We have, in the months since this decision, opened a Girl’s Troop, which is an option with Scouts BSA, but not something we were positioned to do at the time. It took about 6-8 months to identify leaders who could take on that responsibility, a bit late for this scout, and opening a troop for the benefit of one scout is a hard thing to justify.

Scout #2 I reached out to after we opened the Girls Troop. See, X was a Cub Scout (which has been natively co-ed for a few years now) and was very keen on scouting, I thought the new troop (the first girls troop in the area) would be right up X’s alley. Turns out this youth is transgendered FtM and now identifies as a boy. He signed up with a different Boys Troop, and was made to feel like a pariah, nobody knew how to deal with a transgendered scout. Despite the fact that many of the other scouts were in Cubs with him, he felt like an outsider. I met up socially with a leader from that troop yesterday (why I’m writing about this now) and one of the things he brought up was “how do you handle camping?” Which initially is a very reasonable thing to ask, I mean it seems difficult to sensibly handle having people of different sexes (but the same gender) sharing a tent together with zero adult supervision overnight.

Until this morning, when I did a bit of research and found out conclusively that nothing in the BSA program requires scouts to share a tent. They usually share tents, but they don’t have to, at all, it is 100% optional. This young man could have done everything with the Troop on a campout and just setup his own tent near the other patrol tents. Zero rules would be broken, neither in the text of the rule or the intent of the rule. It’s a trivial solution, and they couldn’t be arsed to find it, and I didn’t even know it until this morning, so fuck me, too.

Last is a youth who decided to walk away from our Troop, in part or perhaps entirely, because they find themselves questioning their gender. Good kid, fun and well liked by the others, and they’ll miss out on something they seemed to like.

It pisses me off that an organization that is intended to be a cooperative place to learn, a safe place to fail, is not at all safe, it’s a place of stress for people who already have enough stress. One kid is in the closet, one was a pariah, and one gave up rather than open up. It’s shit, and I’m pissed off that I didn’t do better and others didn’t do better, and kids are the ones being hurt.

2

It’s less reasonable than it sounds. Segregation by sex alone isn’t going to prevent sexual assault. When I was young and prior to my MtF transition, I was repeatedly sexually assaulted by other boys in those kinds of circumstances.

(As an aside, and this is not a criticism of you - just providing the information - it’s “transgender,” not “transgendered.” Adjective, not verb. I’m tall (not talled,) pale (not paled,) brunette (not brunetted,) and transgender (not transgendered.))

3

Man, based on the thread title, I was bracing for some very different content. Do you mind if I edit your thread title to something a bit more descriptive? “Boy Scouts not adequately serving needs of transgender kids” maybe?

4

Yeah, same. >_>;;

5

Please do.

6

Done.

7

There are age rules as well, but it’s fair to say that a risk will always be present as it’s an activity that deliberately avoids constant adult supervision and oversight. It’s youth led and the youth get a chance to lead and do without adults constantly correcting them.

And thank you for being kind with your aside, the difference is noted and I’ll try to have it right in the future.

8

I was a scout, then when my son joined, I became an Assistant Scoutmaster Without Many Responsibilities.
Our troop came out against the anti-gay rules and propaganda prevalent in the 90s (especially when most of the national BSA board members were homophobic Mormons).

But we had a number of gay scouts… and leaders. I’ll have to ask if they’ve had any trans or gender-neutral kids yet. If so, I’d bet they’re being respected. The leaders bent over backwards to be the grown-ups that kids could talk to.

Well, we didn’t have to start a “Girls’ Troop”, we just allowed girls into the troop. No forms, no nothin’ (I’m not sure if the national BSA office ever noticed). We just said “Hey, if you guys have girlfriends, oops, we mean girls that are friends, see if they’d like to join.” As soon as a pair of sisters joined, they brought their friends along. It was a blast, and it was so good for the boys to get to know girls as “just fellow humans”, while chatting as they hiked through the wilderness or while trying to cook an edible dinner on a sandbar after a tough day of canoeing.

9

…because that would make him feel super wanted/included?

10

Sure, if he’s the only one with another tent. But if there’s two boys to a tent, and he’s just the odd one out who gets his own? I wouldn’t instantly assume he’d hate it.

The bigger problem to me is how apparently uncomfortable other Scouts were with him. I wonder if he’d be better off in a troop of people who didn’t know him before.

But, of course, I’m not trans and have no experience with any of this. I feel what is really needed are people with experience and/or knowledge on trans kids.

11

The OP said “patrol tents”, which implies, you know, the entire rest of that guy’s patrol in a tent. Not sure if you’ve been a Scout, but patrols are 6-8 members.

12

I missed the word “patrol” in there. Yeah, I was never a Scout–my church had an equivalent. And the tents I remember were smaller, that we had to set up ourselves.

Still, if there’s no rule about keeping one large tent, it would seem like that could work and feel less exclusive. I know I’d rather have a tent to myself, really.

13

As an adult who could be held responsible if a parent gets pissed off, I’m not comfortable mixing teenage vaginas and penises in a small tent for 8 hours of mostly unsupervised activity.

The reality is that tent time isn’t fun bonding time, it’s tired kids pissed off about that one who’s farting, that one making noise, this one who keeps rolling over or wouldn’t shut up, or whatever. It’s like that saying “nothing good happens after 2pm”, just replace after 2pm with “in a Boy Scout Tent”. My son would have jumped at the chance for his own tent, but it wasn’t presented as an option.

I don’t think there’s a perfect solution available in today’s society, we simply do not accept mixing of genders/sexes in teenage sleeping arrangements where adult supervision is not present.

14

This was a heartbreaking point for me, hearing that the kids who were friends when the scout was a girl were much less friendly when the scout was a boy. The reality is that many of the “what troop should I join” decisions come from having friends in the same troop, so a decent sized slug of scouts from his Cub pack were going to that troop, encouraging that choice.

He may have had a better experience in my troop, but even that’s not guaranteed. I can be welcoming, along with all the other adults, but we don’t have remote controls for the kids, and can’t actually force them to be friendly. We can force them to be decent, we can demand no hazing or harassment, but being genuinely friendly is out of our control.

15

I understand where the reluctance is coming from, I’m saying those parents are dumb. Like - do they think penis + penis/hand/butthole are non-existent combos?

Here, the parents have to give consent before the camp if it’s going to be mixed gender. If not, it’s their kid who doesn’t go, not the kid they’re objecting to. Not that an all-boys camp would qualify, even if one of the boys has different plumbing.

I’m aware. My daughter was a Scout, as was I in the distant past. Mostly, if the camp was done right, they’re going straight to sleep, maybe some light tomfoolery - don’t see how the details of their genitalia matter then.

And in any case, if they’re not falling asleep exhausted, what’s so magical about a separate tent that is going to prevent inter-tent hanky-panky in the middle of the night, if that is the concern?

Otherwise, if the concern here is something else, like bullying or something, that’s a matter of discipline, not logistics.

In either case, I don’t think teaching this one boy (and everyone else) that they are different and not really one of the boys is the right lesson, for anyone.

16

I’m sure the parents would prefer there was no sexual activity on camping trips, but it would be naive to think it never happens. The difference with mixed sex is that sexual activity can lead to pregnancy. If it’s between same-sex campers, then there isn’t the risk of pregnancy. Being in the same tent or different tents isn’t necessarily going to prevent sexual activity, but I would guess that it would happen more between tent mates rather than campers in different tents getting together. That doesn’t necessarily mean that mixed sex campers shouldn’t share a tent. But I don’t think this issue can be discussed without confronting the potential for pregnancy from sexual activity in these situations.

17

Informative, and thanks! People say “transgendered” because they think of it as being “processed” from one gender to another. “He/she is transgendered”, as in, “he/she has completed the process of changing from one gender to another”. They don’t think of it as a state of being.

18

I think that’s usually correct, and is further reflective of the ways our conceptions of people shape the language we use to describe them… And vice-versa. Which is why I feel it’s important to point out the better language to use, even when it’s a harmless case like this where the speaker clearly has their heart in the right place.

19

One way to discourage sexual activity in the tents is to have more than 2 campers in the tent. With just two campers in a tent, it creates an environment where privacy and intimacy is easily possible. But if the tent has 3 or 4 campers, then it’s going to be a much more public and boisterous environment. And having more campers in a tent would also help make campers feel more included. If a camper is in a tent with just one other person, then it’s just that other person to talk with. The one-on-one interaction can be tough. But with 4 people in a tent, there’s always someone talking about something and it’s a more casual environment. Someone who is an introvert can sit back and listen in a 4-person tent rather than feel like they have to constantly talk one-on-one in a 2-person tent.

20

Agreed! The sad truth is that society as a whole would understand these things a whole lot better if society as a whole hadn’t made a tremendous effort to ignore and even bury them. It’s hard to understand something that is never talked about, and its hard to understand people who are afraid to talk about who they really are. That has been changing, but its an ongoing struggle.