Scouting America will alter several policies at the request of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, including a requirement that members use “biological sex at birth and not gender identity.”
The Department of Defense will “conditionally” continue to provide support following the youth organization’s commitment to pull all diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives from its program to maintain its support from the U.S. military.
Mr. Hegseth said in a video released Friday that he had been “seriously considering” ending all Scouting America support, such as personnel support and access to department equipment, installations, facilities and offices.
He said that “standards were lowered and merit destroyed” in favor of an “insidious radical woke ideology that is anti-America and anti-American.”
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Changes include replacing its Citizenship in Society merit badge with a military service merit badge, reverting back to previous membership applications to provide only male and female sex designations and waiving registration fees for the children of military personnel.
In exchange for the reforms, the Defense Department will continue its support of the youth organization, but the Pentagon will “vigorously review” the changes in six months. If Scouting America fails to comply, it will eliminate its support.
Mr. Hegseth has been a vocal critic of the youth organization’s historic rebrand in 2024 from Boy Scouts amid other changes, pinning the blame on “woke culture.”
In early February, the Pentagon said Scouting America had “lost its way,” as its leadership made decisions that “run counter to the values” of the Trump administration, including an “embrace of DEl and other social justice, gender-fluid ideological stances.”
The U.S. military has maintained a strong relationship with the organization since its inception in 1937, but Mr. Hegseth’s distaste for its new policies threatened to put their partnership in jeopardy if it did not comply with Defense Department requests.
“After 2012, however, the Boy Scouts lost their way, and a once-great organization became gravely wounded. DEI crept in. The name was changed to ’Scouting America.’ Girls were accepted. The focus on God as the ruler of the universe was watered down to include openness to humanism and Earth-centered pagan religions,” Mr. Hegseth said in a video.
The organization began allowing gay youth to join in 2013, ended an umbrella ban on gay adult leaders in 2015, began accepting transgender youth in 2017 and accepted girls as Cub Scouts in 2018 and as Boy Scouts in 2019.
“Ideally, I believe the Boy Scouts should go back to being the Boy Scouts as originally founded: a group that develops boys into men. Maybe someday,” Mr. Hegseth said.
