‘Bobby identifies as a girl, and he’s a boy,” a Denver mother told a TV station in a news story about her son, who has been accepted as a Girl Scout.
“He’s been doing this since he was about two years old. He’s loved girl stuff, so we just let him dress how he wants, as long as he’s happy,” she explained.
When she first approached the Girl Scouts’ local troop leader about joining, the answer was pretty sensible: But he’s a boy.
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But what’s sensible is not always politically correct, so the troop leader subsequently got a talking-to. “Girl Scouts is an inclusive organization and we accept all girls in kindergarten through twelfth grade as members,” the Girl Scouts of Colorado declared. The statement continued: “If a child identifies as a girl and the child’s family presents her as a girl, Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout. . . . In this case, an associate delivering our program was not aware of our approach.”
It should come as no surprise, then, that the Gay & Lesbian Fund for Colorado is a sponsor of the Girl Scouts of Colorado’s centennial celebration next year.
As the Girl Scout cookie continues to crumble, my heart goes out to Bobby — although being a Girl Scout may only contribute to his confusion.
But his membership may send a clear message to the rest of us. The Girl Scouts today are nothing like the Do-si-do image most Americans have of them. Local decisions about genderless scouting are the tip of the iceberg. To educate parents about the ideological ties of the 21st-century Girl Scouts, Sharon Slater, president of Family Watch International, has put together a website with questions for parents and others to ask about the Girl Scouts. Part of what bothers Slater and other Girl Scout critics is the connection between every troop and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, whose radical agenda, it is safe to say, may not reflect the values of all the families in your local troop.
But the questionable associations do not end there. Christy Volanski, whose two daughters have quit the Girl Scouts, asks me, “Are Girl Scout parents aware that GSUSA is a member of the National Collaboration for Youth (NCY) and that NCY’s home page sends girls to NCY’s Spark Action project for youth, which promotes the ‘We had an Abortion’ campaign, Medical Students for Choice, and Catholics for Choice?” NCY’s chair is a former CEO of the Girl Scouts. A look at the speakers and entertainment at the recent GSUSA convention in Houston indicates the kind of values the national organization is most comfortable with, which move beyond the “traditional” gender model, as its website explains. Like many a self-identified women’s-leadership organization, the Girl Scouts have become all too comfortable in their connections to abortion advocates and other “progressive” organizations.
Slater’s campaign, however, is not a war against the Girl Scouts. “We would love for the Girl Scouts to return to what most people believe they are — an organization focused on developing girls with strong moral character.”
Yet in the '90s, I kept hearing "they learn and achieve more in a supportive all-girl environment." Well it depends on what your definition of girl is.
The other one I got tired of hearing is "it's for the girls." If it's repeated that often, then someone is trying to concel another reason. Sounds like it's for the Movement, whatever the real definition of Movement is.
GSUSA's loss of older girls is an even deeper trend. The usual wave-off explanation is that the girls have so many other activties, sports, etc to get involved with. Maybe this is one of the unspoken reasons that girls leave at Junior or above.
Former volunteer and cookie dad here, but not again. I put my donations and time toward the local Boy Scout council.
Yet another example of Liberals messing something up. They mess up the economy (fooling with markets), have destroyed the Black Family with welfare, have harmed the Military (turning it into another social experiment). Now The Girl Scouts is yet another liberal (or progressive if you like) organization who has to hide their true face or people wouldn't have anything to do with them.
IMO, the Girl Scouts and anybody else presenting as a girl group needs to restrict itself to actual (biological) girls.
However, even by these people's completely wacky rule it doesn't sound like Bobby qualifies, since his family says "Bobby identifies as a girl, and he’s a boy.” That's not the family "presenting" Bobby as a girl; the family has not yet sunk all the way into the delusion.
Which means there may still be a glimmer of hope for Bobby ... although, apparently, not for the higher Girl Scout authorities.
Sadly KLo blindly fails to understand her erroneous use of "gender" instead of "sex" for the distinction between male and female is part of the highly successful pervert propaganda campaign of which she is sadly unwittingly a part that has brainwashed the world as did the Nazi forbears, described by "The gay invention" at www.touchstonemag.com (2005), proving it's really quite easy to brainwash an entire civilization if you really try, especially one that has abandoned the sole truth of God and His Word.
An interesting example of how governance matters in non-profits. The GSA are organized such that the national organization "owns" the local troops (thus the "assciate"). So when the national organization is captured by a group with a new agenda, the GSA changes as a unit.
The BSA a bottoms-up organization, with the troops owned by their chartering organizations and thus independent locally. The national organization is effectively "owned" collectively by the member units, and is much more resistant to capture at the top.
The Boy Scouts are fighting a retreating action (I'm loathe to say "rear-guard") against the forces of PC. The Boy Scouts are not winning and the but regardless the Organization has a bit of life left in it.
The Girl Scouts are known to be PC and worthless. Weirdly, PC isn't seen as cutting edge. While the Boy Scouts go out and have fun the Girl Scouts are involved in social change. Isn't that what college and a few tens of thousands of dollars is designed to do: PC re-engineer the world? (Then it's off to work at OWC for a $10/day stripend & plates of steaming wild rice.)
Herbert Hoover lived a long life and had the satisfaction of reading the passing of his many critics. In modern America the Scouts will pass one day but hopefully they will have the satisfaction of reading the obituary of the Girl Scouts before that day.
How exactly are the Boy Scouts losing? We are proud members, and our unit is going strong. And thank God, there is no PC visible from the top or bottom.
My boys have been involved in scouting since the late 90s. It helps to have more than a few boys to know an organization well.
My area of the country is on the verge of losing a good number of Boy Scout troops. It's a demographic thing. Generally, mostly (big PC qualifier) only "ethnic european" Americans join the scouts. As there have been less since the '90s in the local troops. It's a demographic thing.
But the Girl Scouts are in far worse condition than the Boys. The girls have a bureaucracy that puts the old Politbureau of the former Soviet Union to shame. Sooner or later the giant bureaucracy will suck the life out of it's host.
My guess is the Girl Scouts will implode inside of 20 years. Conversely, demographics will diminish the Boy Scouts.
But as long as the Boy Scouts can read the obituary of the Girl Scouts I'll be happy.
I am a long time (about 15 years) volunteer for Girl Scouts as both a leader and other local level positions.
Yes, I really do not like certain changes recently made to the program on the national level. However, most of the program is very locally based and volunteer driven. There is a lot of leeway to work in good values. For instance, the newer program does not emphasize community service projects, but many leaders do them anyway. Our girls march in Memorial Day parades, go camping and sing at holidays at nursing homes just as they might have 40 years ago.
It is not and never was a "religious" organization - respecting religions yes, but that was not its major activities. There are plenty of other groups for that. I have had girls of every religion in my troop and it has rarely been a problem.
Please don't stop supporting a very valuable organization because there are a few PC types at the top. If you could see the many great Gold Award projects the older girls do (many for their churches or temples) you would be amazed at the leadership of high school girls partly as a result of this program.
I'm also a lifelong GS with three daughters who are active in troops and I'm the leader of a troop as well.
I don't entirely disagree with your post, but the thing is, by forcibly retiring the old badge books with their wonderful girl-driven variety and flexibility and cramming the godawful, PC-run-amok, idiot-academic-written Journey workbooks down our throats, they've taken away much of the ability to be flexible and adapt the program. They've taken away most of the old badges (and they won't tell me which are still available in a warehouse somewhere so I can plan around that and still manage to do those activities) and are requiring us to waste so much time doing the stupid Journeys that I have to bend myself into pretzels trying to make the program into some semblance of its former self.
This will be our last year with Girl Scouts after many years, which is a darn shame. I could have ignored the leftist nonsense going on at the national level and continued to forge a traditional experience for my own girls, but now that they're making us march down this stupid *using your power to advocate on behalf of forgotten girls and women, and by the way let's all worship this list of lesbian athletes as role models* path, forget it.
Housewife - I'm with you. I have a 5th grader who loves her troop and is staying with Girl Scouts - but my 4 year old will never ever get near this organization. My 10 year old's "Journey" was an anti-American guilt and anxiety producing screed about global warming and "light pollution" and bring your own silverware to a restaurant to save water - what?? I did write letters - heard nothing in response.
I have reluctantly let her continue as a girl scout and it kills me to write checks to this bunch of leftists- but for my younger daughter, I've already looked into how to start an AHG troop - of course there is not one in NJ - maybe we'll be the first!
My daughter and I are having a big laugh over the silverware, Bittr Clingr. What on earth??
Sadly, we saw where Girl Scouts were going and passed. Looked into AHG, but we would have had to have started our own. At this point I will cheer to see the Girl Scouts go. For some reason they always bring Hillary Clinton to mind. I think she must have bragged about being a Girl Scout and it stuck. She's a good point of reference, actually.
"Please don't stop supporting a very valuable organization because there are a few PC types at the top."
Respectfully, we cannot do so. My wife -- a life-long Girl Scout -- and I have chosen to support organizations (such as American Heritage Girls) where there isn't such radicalism at the top.
It's dangerous to do otherwise, because the radicals aren't content with funnelling money -- and equally important prestige -- from the Girl Scouts to their political agenda.
The ultimate goal is to indoctrinate the young women in your care. They have subverted the organization, and the only two safe responses are to take the organization back or, barring that, to leave it for safer ground.
I was a Girl Scout for 12 years, starting as a Brownie and ending as an assistant Junior troop leader. And none of this was all that long ago - only college and my early career took me out of volunteering in some capacity. Like AndreaSue, I believe ceasing to support your local Scouts does more harm than good. I discovered how to be a leader, how to be a member of a team, how to put my skills to use in helping others. My troops were led by Christian women in my local community - and my mother. Our programs didn't center on anyone's political or social agenda. We prayed, we sang inspirational songs - in two troops I was a member of, we attended church services in the small towns near our camp sites when we spent the whole weekend camping. Girl Scouts is 100 percent what you make of it - I imagine AHG is similar in that regard, as I know Boy Scouts can be as well (my brother is an Eagle and member of OA). I have a lot of issues with the agenda of GSUSA. But when the 7 year old from my church, whose mom volunteers at the same Christian charities I support, comes to me asking if I want a box of Caramel Delites so she can go to summer camp - an experience I have extremely fond memories of and would love every girl to have - I am not letting my pique preventing me from helping her out.
I hate what happened in Colorado. I think a lot of people are dealing with a growing issue in our society in a very hurtful, confused way. And mostly, I hate that for a child like Bobby, there is more confused reaction than there is compassion, prayer, or help. Girl Scouts is wrong to censure a troop leader for her very rational decision - and they are more wrong for not developing a better response to a problem than an open door policy. But should every little girl in Scouts right now be punished for this?
I hope AHG is a successful organization, I really do. But I also hope Girl Scouts is successful, and comes back to the roots it has. In the meantime, if a girl from either group knocks on my door with an earnest face and a go-getter attitude, selling her cookies or calendars or whatever, I will support her. This whole debate is overshadowing her right now - and it is going to keep her from a once -in-a-lifetime opportunity to grow.
Sorry, AndreaSue--for our two little girls, we're opting out, too. My mother and sister were life-long Girl Scouts. I was a Boy Scout. In a society suffering great social costs (illegitimacy, divorce, unplanned pregnancy, STDs, abortion, pornography, prostitution, human trafficking) as a result of gender confusion and widespread abrogation of male and female leadership roles, we have to take a stand for truth. Boys are boys, and are meant to become men. Girls are girls--different from boys--and are meant to become women. BSA and AHG are beacons of truth in a fog of gender confusion. GSA has become captive of the moral relativists and the gender warriors. As other commenters have noted, the national leadership matters--it is inevitable that the local programs wll be increasingly limited at best or at worst completely captive to this agenda. Men and women of good conscence can no longer go along-- it's decision time. Time to either fight to reclaim GSA so it is once again a suitable guiding light for our daughters or abandon it and help build a new organization that won't surrender in the face of this age's moral challenges. As for me and my house...we're with AHG.
Sorry, I feel your pain; I watched my church die of PC. You -- and they -- and society writ large -- are up against an immutable Law of Nature (part of the mighty Murphy Catechism): You mix a tablespoon of wine with a barrel of sewage and you get sewage. You mix a tablespoon of sewage with a barrel of wine, you get sewage.
AndreaSue,
You make an interesting comment. I admire your willingness to be involved in your child(ren)'s life with GS, but your logic leaves a little to be desired. Girl Scouts, just like Boy Scouts, teaches children many things. Among them is culture. Culture is really the outward exression of religion. This is why GS is scary. It's a great looking cookie with a little rat dropping in the middle. Some say "oh, it's a really small dropping and I won't even taste it." Others bypass the whole (ruined/rotten) thing for something that is clean.
I would give the exact opposite recommendation that you give - if you're part of a top-driven organization and they get hijacked by a bunch of kooks don't bow down to the golden idol - turn right and exit immediately. Don't let your emotional attachment to an organization get in the way of principles. Your children will notice.
I used to be highly involved with GS as a leader, cookie mom, fundraiser and I was gradually turned off by the organization. Juliette Low's interest in nature and helping others has morphed into preaching about climate change and social justice. Like any liberal issue, follow the money. These girls are asked to participate in several fundraisers, in addition to the famous cookies, but only 10-15% of sales go to the troop. The remaining 65-70% goes to the regional GS council and to GSUSA. Like the administrative bloat at our universities, GS has expanded the number of paid staff, all "for the girls" and the programs. Well, I refused to utilize any of the new programs offered because I didn't think parents entrusted me with their daughters so I could expose them to liberal propaganda. We stuck with the basic tenets of scouting, had some fun learning and helping others, but I left a few years ago when I could no longer be associated with the excessive bureaucracy and seemingly wasteful spending. Like Traveller, I happily support the Boy Scouts...
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