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Scouting America will alter several policies at the urging of the Pentagon, including one targeting transgender children, the defense secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Friday as he pushes a campaign against military support for diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
Some of the changes mirror what the organization suggested to the defense department in January, which included discontinuing its citizenship in society merit badge and introducing a military service merit badge as well as waiving registration fees for the children of military personnel.
Under Hegseth, the Pentagon has taken aim at the military’s partnership with Scouting America, decrying its historic rebrand in 2024 from the Boy Scouts and other changes in recent years that he sees as part of “woke culture” efforts that he wants to root out.
Hegseth said in a video posted on X that, after 2012, the “Boy Scouts lost their way and a once great organization became gravely wounded. Diversity, equity and inclusion, DEI, crept in. The name was changed to Scouting America. Girls were accepted.
“The focus on God as the ruler of the universe was watered down to include openness to humanism and earth-centered pagan religions. Scouting became an organization that no longer supported and celebrated boys. They even welcomed the destructive myth of gender fluidity and transgenderism to infiltrate their membership,” he continued.
Taking aim at trans youth specifically, Hegseth said: “Scouting America will modify its policy to make clear that membership will be based solely on biological sex at birth and not gender identity. That means that the application, any application, will have only two sex designations, male and female, and the application must match the applicant’s birth certificate. Scouting will also make clear that biological boys and girls will not be allowed to occupy or share intimate spaces together: toilets, showers, tents, anywhere like that.”
He also said that the Pentagon will “vigorously review” the changes the organization has made in six months and will cease its support of Scouting America if it fails to comply.
“We hope that doesn’t happen, but it could,” Hegseth said. “Ideally, I believe the Boy Scouts should go back to being the Boy Scouts as originally founded, a group that develops boys into men. Maybe someday.”
In a statement to the Guardian, Scouting America confirmed they’re making “programmatic updates to comply with Executive Order 14173” and plan to implement “new programmatic elements that deliver on that mission: waiving registration fees for military families, launching a new merit badge focused on military service and veterans, and reinforcing our commitment to Scouting’s foundational ideas: leadership, character, duty to God, duty to country and service”.
Their statement, which also celebrates how “girls have been an integral part of Scouting since the 1960s and have served as leaders and program developers for decades”, does not make mention of trans youth in any way. When approached again about Hegseth zeroing in on trans youth specifically, the organization did not respond.
The organization began allowing gay youth in 2013, ended a blanket ban on gay adult leaders in 2015 and announced in 2017 that it would accept transgender students. It began accepting girls as Cub Scouts as of 2018 and into the flagship Boy Scout program – renamed Scouts BSA – in 2019. As of May 2024, more than 6,000 girls had earned the coveted eagle scout rank.
The Pentagon said in a statement earlier this month that it was reviewing its relationship with Scouting America, claiming it had “lost its way” in many ways and calling the organization’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts “unacceptable”.
“Scouting America’s leadership has made decisions that run counter to the values of this administration,” the 6 February statement said, “including an embrace of DEl and other social justice, gender-fluid ideological stances.”
The Pentagon previously said it was nearing an agreement with Scouting America to continue their partnership if the organization “rapidly implements the common-sense, core value reforms”.
“Scouting America remains far from perfect, but they have firmly committed to a return to core principles,” the statement said. “Back to God and country – immediately!”
The US military and the Boy Scouts have had longtime ties, including the military providing logistical support for the national jamboree since its inception in 1937.
The military also has a long history of sponsoring scout troops and activities on US military bases and has maintained a strong relationship with the eagle scouts, whose members often enlist in the armed forces.
In a statement last year, Scouting America raised concerns following a report from NPR that the Pentagon planned to cut support for scouting programs on military bases as well as for the national jamboree and would eliminate increases in pay grade for eagle scouts who enlist.
The scouts told Hegseth in January that after hearing his suggestions, they had come up with a plan for him to review, which included discontinuing their citizenship in society merit badge and introducing a military service merit badge, waiving registration fees for military personnel and holding a ceremony to rededicate themselves to leadership, duty to god, duty to country and service, besides dissolving their DEI board committee.
Founded in 1910, the Boy Scouts of America achieved a vaunted status in the US over the decades, with “pinewood derbies”, the “scout oath” and “eagle scouts” becoming part of the lexicon.
Lore has it that American businessman William Boyce was inspired to start the organization after he became lost in the fog in London and was guided to his destination by a youth who turned down a tip, telling Boyce that because he was a scout (they were formed in Britain in 1907) he couldn’t accept money for a good deed.
Since then, the organization has faced controversies and undergone significant changes.
In 1990, the organization expelled an eagle scout who had become an assistant scoutmaster after discovering he was co-president of his university’s gay and lesbian organization. He sued in 1992, alleging discrimination and lost at the US supreme court, which ruled that the scouts could maintain membership and leadership criteria that excluded gay people.
Conservative groups rallied around the Boy Scouts, but scores of institutions curtailed support as the ban continued. The ban ended in 2013. In 2015, the organization ended its blanket ban on gay adult leaders while allowing church-sponsored scout units to maintain the exclusion for religious reasons.
In 2017, the Boy Scouts announced they would allow transgender children who identify as boys to enroll in their boys-only programs. That came after an eight-year-old was asked to leave his scout troop in New Jersey after parents and leaders found out he was transgender.
The boy scouts also faced a flood of sexual abuse claims and sought bankruptcy protection in 2020, when it had been named in about 275 lawsuits and told insurers it was aware of another 1,400 claims.
In 2023, a judge upheld the $2.4bn bankruptcy plan allowing the organization to keep operating while compensating more than 80,000 men who filed claims saying they had been sexually abused while in scouting.
Last year, Scouting America’s president and CEO Roger Krone acknowledged some backlash to the rebrand but described the overall response as a positive one that generated wider interest.
“The fact that we were going with a more kind of gender-neutral name, a lot of people kind of wanted to know more about it,” Krone said.
The organization said it saw a gain in membership of about 16,000 new scouts, fewer than 2% from the prior year. The organization said at the time that it had just more than 1 million members.
