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transgender-boy-allowed-to-join girl scouts
A SEVEN-YEAR-OLD Colorado boy’s desire to join the Girl Scouts — and the organisation’s reversal of his initial rejection — has put a spotlight on the Scouts’ little-known policy of supporting transgender kids, FOX News reported today.
The story of little Bobby Montoya came to light earlier this week, when his mother told a Denver TV station that Bobby’s request to join his older sister in the venerable all-girl organisation was denied. Felisha Archuleta says Bobby dresses in girls’ clothes and likes girls’ toys.
Ms Archuleta told KUSA-TV that a troop leader said “‘It doesn’t matter how he looks. He has boy parts, and he can’t be in Girl Scouts. Girl Scouts don’t allow that [and] I don’t want to be in trouble by parents or my supervisor.'”
But the local troop leader was apparently unaware of current policies within the organisation.
The Girl Scouts of Colorado released a statement this week stating that they are an “inclusive organisation” and that little Bobby will be allowed to join if he wants to.
“We accept all girls in kindergarten through 12th grade as members. 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,” according to the statement.
Rachelle Trujillo, a spokeswoman for Girl Scouts of Colorado, said it is not a “black-and-white policy.”
She added that the troop leader’s confusion may have arisen when Ms Archuleta kept referring to Bobby as a boy when trying to sign the child up.
“We have reached out to Bobby’s mother, but she has said that her child does not feel comfortable joining that troop. So we spoke to her about having Bobby join another troop, but she has not gotten back to us.”
The Girl Scouts policy has won praise from transgender groups.
“If some little kid wants to do little kid things at the Girl Scouts, then they should be allowed to,” said Mara Keisling, Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality.
But others think the Girl Scouts should be more steadfast in its policies, letting boys be boys and girls be girls.
To cross that line “is child sexual abuse, the violation of children’s genetic reality aided by a society that is reverting back to the dark,” said Judith A. Reisman, visiting professor of law at Liberty University School of Law.
“If he has male parts, he is a male,” she said.
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5 Replies
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It just goes to show that things are changing, slowly maybe but progress none the less. In my day the queer would have been” whooped outa the boy” and he would have been forced into the ” boys brigade” just for his own good. Good old Anglican militarism!
Shame that the neanderthal woman quoted in the text is allowed to even express such shite in public ( or is that fair to Neanaderthals? Bugger it, they are extinct now so I can’t actually be rude to them can I??) -
I thought girls were girl guides and boys were scouts, not that i have any knowledge but girl scouts, wouldn’t that be like boy guides?
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On FB there is an attempt by one young Xtian girlscout to have people boycott GS cookies in order to change the dangerous liberal ways of the GS authorities. She believes that this is a ploy by ” transsexual boys” to infiltrate the tents of the innocents and take advantage. The fact that the child in question is only 7 seems to escape her.
Huffington Post Gay news has the video but I don’t know how to link it here.Still, getting people to avoid these sickly biscuits IS a public service IMO.
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Maddy,
nice comment. it may be of interest, girls were able to join Scouts some 20 years ago.
BOYS, on the other hand are not allowed, anywhere, to join “girl” Guides.
wonder where the discrimination begins.BTW, Most females who join Scouts prefer the more extreme skills required, however, (as my daughter informs me) the Guides are limiting the skills required.
SHE is a Queens Guide, and tells me that the commitments required now are lesser thant hers. and her daughter may never be required to achieve anything near her testing {regrettably}(My daughter had only one level to reach in her Guiding to become one of thirty in Australia)
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I spent quite some time in scouts in australia, 10 as a youth member, and 5 as a leader. The situation here is that the movement opened up, as Brenda said, some time ago to allow girls into scouts, because they weren’t getting the stuff they wanted from guides – that isn’t to say guides wasn’t doing enough, but some girls wanted to do the stuff guides do, and some girls were more interested in getting a bit more hands on, rougher and so on. So they joined scouts. Note that there is no longer any reference to “boy scouts”, as many still believe.
Now, while my perception is not by any means accurate, in the US I believe there are two forms of scouts. There’s the girl scouts, which is the equivalent (I believe) to our guides, and then there’s eagle scouts, which is like our normal scouts. There is a youtube clip that has the young girl mentioned as boycotting the biscuits, she appears to be fed from her family’s beliefs, and the baptist church, based on what she’s saying. However, there are lots of others responding to her, and telling her basically to get a life. I won’t post the irl on here due to PIPA and SOPA stuff – wouldn’t want to be a pirate or some crap, would I?? But you can easily find it, just put in boycott girl scout cookies, it’ll come up.
Anyhoo, her rant goes against just about everything that has been worked towards for the last however many years, and I suspect that it’ll get squashed. Just disappointing.
