Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
In an effort to make children of same-sex parents and those who are questioning their gender feel at home in the Girl Scouts, a Utah-based outreach coordinator has launched the first “sexuality-based” troop in Salt Lake City which will meet in the Utah Pride Center.
LifeSiteNews.com is reporting that the new troop is aimed at gay and lesbian families and boys who consider themselves to be girls.
“As long as a youth identifies as a girl or with girls, even if they are genderfluid on the day that they registered, then they can become a Girl Scout,” said Shari Solomon-Klebba, the Utah Girl Scout outreach coordinator responsible for Salt Lake City’s first sexuality-based troop, in an interview with KUTV.
The first meeting took place on Monday comprised of five biological girls ranging in age from six to eleven. They met in the Utah Pride Center in a “game room” where a box of condoms sat on the table and a nearby sign read: “Some boys have vaginas.”
(Pride Center director Sheila Raboy later told KUTV that leaving these items visible to children was an “oversight” and would be hidden during future meetings.)
Solomon-Klebba, a lesbian who is raising a young daughter with her partner, Cindy – whom she “married” in Utah in December – told KUER she started the troop to help kids like her daughter avoid the emotional discomfort that being around traditional families can often cause them.
“Because sometimes, you know, that stigma of having parents that are a little bit different, you know, that fall outside of the norm. That can always be a little bit awkward,” Solomon-Klebba said.
Raboy agreed and told the Associated Press that “these girls will be able to enjoy the Girl Scouts the way girls who are from regular, heterosexual families are able to enjoy it.”
Even though no transgendered boys showed up, Raboy said she expects some to join soon, and that the troop is open to any child in kindergarten through 12th grade who identifies as a girl regardless of their sex.
What will this mean for the Scouts popular overnight camping trips?
“According to the Girl Scouts’ website, situations in which biologically male Girl Scouts have tried to participate in camping trips are ‘rare’, and as such, there is no set policy regarding the matter,” LifeSite reports. “Rather, the organization recommends local councils “[make] similar accommodation that schools across the country follow in regard to changing, sleeping arrangements, and other travel-related activities.”
This is not the first Girl Scout troop to allow transgendered boys into their club. Seven-year old Bobby Montoya, a boy who believes himself to be a girl, kicked off a national controversy in 2011 when he was accepted into a troop in Colorado.
The Girl Scouts increasingly progressive bend has found them making all of the wrong kind of headlines in recent years. They’ve been criticized for their ties to Planned Parenthood and other causes germane to radical feminism. They have also garnered criticism for naming as role models women such as pro-abortion Texas congresswoman Wendy Davis and former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
They also came under intense criticism for some of their hiring practices – such as naming the lead singer of a homopunk band named Josh Ackley to serve as media spokesperson. In one of Ackley’s videos, a woman is strangled and a naked man is shown in a sexual pose.
The Scouts also hired an open lesbian named Krista Kokjohn-Poehler as “Girl Experience Officer”.
None of these activities have won them friends, which is evidenced in their rapidly declining ranks. The organization saw a six percent decline in members and adult volunteers in the last year, from 2,994,844 to 2,813,997. Total membership is also down 27 percent from 2003 when the ranks peaked at more than 3.8 million.
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