Disappointed

I was at a function with a person who fought for lifting the ban on gays scouts and scout leaders and we somehow got on the subject of scouting and I mentioned that the boy scouts do not allow trans scouts. The person’s response threw me for a loop, the person said, “Well it is not a written policy.” Hun?

I have learned when and where to pick my battles and sitting around the a table at a banquet is not a place to get in a shouting match, the way the person brushed off my comment indicated to me that no matter what I said would change the person’s mind, I checked off as “Gay Inc.”

8-year-old transgender boy barred from Cub Scouts
FROM THE MOMENT HE JOINED, 8-YEAR-OLD JOE MALDONADO EAGERLY LOOKED FORWARD TO CAMPING TRIPS AND SCIENCE PROJECTS WITH HIS SECAUCUS CUB SCOUT PACK.
USA Today
Abbott Koloff , Staff Writer
December 27, 2016

From the moment he joined, 8-year-old Joe Maldonado eagerly looked forward to camping trips and science projects as a member of the Cub Scouts. But his expectations were dashed after his mother said she received a phone call from a scouting official who told her that Joe would no longer be allowed to participate because he was born a girl.

Kristie Maldonado said she was stunned because her son had been a member of Cub Scout Pack 87 in Secaucus for about a month, and his transgender status had not been a secret. But some parents complained, an official from the Northern New Jersey Council Boy Scout told her – even though her son had been living as a boy for more than a year and was accepted as a boy at school, she said

"Not one of the kids said, "You don’t belong here,’” Maldonado said of the scouts in the pack.

The comment that the LGBT organizations made me think of my conversation at the banquet.

Joe's case could be the first time someone has been barred from participating in scouting because they are transgender, said members of the LGBT community. And it comes as the Boy Scouts of America appeared to be emerging from a period of turmoil involving sexual orientation issues, reversing long-standing bans against gay scouts and gay scouting leaders over the past few years. Those policy changes were made amid an internal debate that saw at least one local council defy national scouting decrees by hiring a gay camp counselor, and pressure brought from corporations that withheld donations from the organization.

The Boy Scouts did not address the transgender issue at the time, LGBT advocates said, perhaps because the organization had no written policy related to gender identity. Transgender rights only recently emerged as a national issue, often focusing on the use of restrooms based on gender identity. Dozens of North Jersey school districts, including Secaucus, have granted that right, among others, to transgender students.

The headlines when the scouts removed the ban on gay scouts and leaders, everyone was celebrating the “victory” and the trans community was saying “what about us?” and we were ignored. I thought at the time that it sounds like “we got ours, and you can fight your own battles.”

And what was the reason given to kicking him out of the scouts?

The Scouts declined to say whether they have a written transgender policy. Effie Delimarkos, the communications director for the Boy Scouts of America, said in a statement that the organization’s Cub Scouts programs are for boys between the ages of 7 and 10, and that "the classification on the participant’s birth certificate” would be used to “confirm legal status.” She did not provide additional details, and did not specify whether the Boy Scouts have ever examined gender statuses on birth certificates.

To me that sounds like a copout, “we go by the birth certificate” I think that they know that someone that young cannot have surgery or hormones and in all but something like eight or nine state you need surgery to change your birth certificate.

No youth may be removed from any of our programs on the basis of his or her sexual orientation,” she said, but added: “Gender identity isn’t related to sexual orientation.” The Boy Scouts declined to directly address the situation in Secaucus or say whether local or state scouting leaders consulted the national office about the matter.

I stood by the gays and lesbians for marriage equality, and I stood by them when they had rallies at the capitol. But will they come and stand by us to end discrimination?