Transgender youth are targeted in Boy Scouts of America changes pushed by Pentagon

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Boy Scouts of America will change several policies at the request of the Pentagon, including one targeting transgender youth, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday as he pushes a campaign against military support for diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Read more: New Pentagon policy undermines transgender troops’ ability to fight military ban, AP reports

Some of the changes mirror what the organization proposed to the Pentagon in January, including discontinuing the merit badge for community citizenship, introducing a merit badge for military service and waiving registration fees for children of military personnel.

Under Hegseth, the Pentagon has targeted the military’s partnership with the Boy Scouts of America, denouncing its historic 2024 rebranding from the Boy Scouts of America and other changes in recent years that he sees as part of a “woke culture” effort he wants to eradicate.

The Boy Scouts of America will ask its members to use their “biological sex at birth, not gender identity,” Hegseth said in a video posted on X. Applications will only list options for males and females and the selection must match the applicant’s birth certificate, he said. He said the group will make clear that young people who are heterosexual at birth cannot share bathrooms, tents or other similar spaces.

Hegseth said the Pentagon will “vigorously review” the changes made by the Boy Scouts of America within six months and halt its support for the organization if it fails to comply.

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“We hope it doesn’t happen, but it might happen,” Hegseth said. “Ideally, I think the Boy Scouts should go back to being the Boy Scouts as they were originally founded, a group that develops boys into men. Maybe one day.”

The Boy Scouts keep the new name and female membership

In a statement Friday, the Boy Scouts of America did not mention changing the policy targeting transgender youth, but noted its need to comply with an executive order from President Donald Trump targeting DEI programs.

The Irving, Texas-based organization also noted that it has maintained its new name and “maintained our service to more than 200,000 girls participating in our programs.”

The organization began admitting LGBT youth in 2013, ended its blanket ban on adult LGBT leaders in 2015, and announced in 2017 that it would accept transgender students. It began accepting girls as Cub Scouts from 2018 and into its flagship Scouting programme, renamed Scouts BSA, in 2019.

The Boy Scouts of America said the policy changes deepen the organization’s century-old partnership with the military, which has included Scouts meeting on or near military installations in the United States and abroad.

He watches: Why did the Boy Scouts of America change its name?

“Scouting America is one of the most reliable pipelines to America’s armed forces that our country has ever known,” the organization added. “Scouts are more likely to serve in uniform than the general population. Eagle Scouts are overrepresented in ROTC programs, service academies and military leadership pathways.”

The Pentagon threatened to withdraw support

Hegseth’s other anti-DEI efforts ranged from ending all military training at “woke” Harvard to claiming that the independent military newspaper Stars and Stripes would no longer include “distractions.” He launched the move with Scouting America on Friday as tensions with Iran escalate and the Trump administration considers possible military action after amassing the largest force of American warships and aircraft in the Middle East in decades.

The Pentagon said earlier this month that it was reviewing its relationship with the Boy Scouts of America, claiming it had “lost its way” in several ways and calling the organization’s DEI efforts “unacceptable.”

“The leadership of the Boy Scouts of America has made decisions inconsistent with the values ​​of this administration,” the Feb. 6 statement said, “including embracing DEl and other social justice and gender-shifting ideological positions.”

Read more: The Pentagon orders the military to withdraw library books on diversity, anti-racism, and gender issues

The Pentagon previously said it and the Boy Scouts of America were close to an agreement to continue their partnership if the organization “quickly implements commonsense core value reforms.”

There have been long-standing relationships between the U.S. Army and the Boy Scouts, including the Army providing logistical support to the National Scout Jamboree since its establishment in 1937. The Army has also maintained a strong relationship with the Eagle Scouts, whose members are often recruited.

In a statement last year, the Boy Scouts of America raised concerns after a report from NPR that the Pentagon intended to reduce support for Scouting programs on military bases as well as for national camps and would eliminate increases in pay grades for Eagle Scouts who recruit.

The group told Hegseth last month that after hearing his suggestions, it came up with a plan, which along with the badge changes included holding a ceremony to rededicate itself to leadership, duty to God, duty to country and service, as well as dissolving the DEI board committee.

Important cultural forces and changes

Founded in 1910, the Boy Scouts of America has achieved prominence in the United States over the decades, with the Pinewood Derby, Boy Scouts and Eagle Scouts now part of the lexicon.

Since then, the organization has faced major controversies and changes.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 1992 lawsuit filed by an assistant Scoutmaster who was fired because of his sexual orientation that Boy Scouts can maintain membership and leadership standards that exclude gay people.

The ban ended in 2013. Two years later, the organization ended its blanket ban on gay adult leaders, while allowing church-sponsored Scout units to continue exclusion on religious grounds. In 2017, the Boy Scouts announced that they would allow transgender children who identify as boys to enroll in their boys-only programs.

Read more: A retired businessman becomes the new president of the Boy Scouts of America after it emerges from bankruptcy due to scandals

The Boy Scouts also faced a torrent of sexual assault claims and sought bankruptcy protection in the 2020s. In 2023, a judge upheld the $2.4 billion bankruptcy plan, allowing the organization to continue operating while compensating more than 80,000 men who filed claims saying they were sexually assaulted while scouting.

Last year, Scouting America President and CEO Roger Krohn acknowledged there was some backlash to the rebranding, but described the overall response as positive that sparked broader interest.

“The fact that we were choosing a gender-neutral name, a lot of people wanted to know more about it,” Krohn said.
The organization said that it witnessed an increase in membership by about 16,000 new Scouts, or less than 2% over the previous year. The organization said at the time that it had just over one million members.

Stengle reported from Dallas. Associated Press writers Konstantin Torobin in Washington and Ed White in Detroit contributed to this report.