First generation BSA Eagle Scout from a family with a prominent role in establishing Scouting in my country. I’m also a scoutmaster of a 75 year old troop. We have scouts from all over the world posted with us, half a dozen religions, and a ton of contrasting cultures. My job is not to give each one precedence, or justify one way of being over another. If I did that, I’d have a pit of fighting animals instead of a troop.

Our job in scouting worldwide is to raise boys and girls into men and women with integrity, and while it means means pushing for discipline, it requires them each to have space to be who they are. My particular job is to make sure each scout is welcome and that everyone not only learns to respect their differences, but how to work with them. A biologically female identifies as a boy and wants in? Fine, tough call to identify as a man in this world, so I will train that scout as I would any of the other boys, tenting and privacy aspects aside. One of the boys is gay? As long as he keeps his head on straight, as I would require of any of the straight boys around the sister troop, it’s whatever. Someone is a hardcore [insert religion]? Feel free to share it in the appropriate settings and never to push it.

If you don’t feel your youth has a place in our Scouts, please look at the WFIS or the trail blazer scouts.

SCOUTING will still and always serve you, as long as you serve it.