Can a girl who gender identifies as a boy join a Scout troop now?

[NJCubScouter]

20 hours ago, bearess said:

After reading through the whoooole thread, the question I’m left with is why people feel confident they would know if a transgendered kid joined their troop.  Honestly, you might not.  We live in a rural area— my son’s Troop pulls from, I believe, seven different towns.  Add in private schools, and you have kids coming from over ten different schools.  My son— and the leaders— only know the kids as the gender they present as.  If the parent checks “male” on the form, well, that’s that.  Nobody would know to question it.  Now, yes, if the kid had been a Cub and changed genders, that would be known.  But a transgender boy who joins Boy Scouts as a boy?  There’s a good chance nobody would even know.

I guess it depends on the area.  I live in the most densely populated state in the country.  My specific area is less densely populated than the average for NJ.  It is mostly a mixture of suburban developments and small industrial (or formerly industrial) towns, with various kinds of multi-family housing scattered here and there.  I think chances are pretty high that at least one kid in a troop or pack is going to have known little Johnny back when he was little Janey.  And if they didn't know him directly, they will have heard about it.  Unfortunately it is something people like to gossip about.  So once one person knows, everybody knows.  Yes, there is a chance that someone could move into the area and nobody would know, but I think that would be the unusal case.  (Not that I think it matters, because I support the current BSA policy of accepting the parents' word on what gender their child is.  I do not like the talk I have heard in this thread of people planning to switch back and forth to game the advancement system, and I hope that isn't really happening.)

I will add, it was probably not by complete coincidence that the case that prompted the BSA to change its policy happened in New Jersey.  The "test" cases always seem to start here.

Edited June 25, 2018 by NJCubScouter

[David CO]

21 hours ago, bearess said:

After reading through the whoooole thread, the question I’m left with is why people feel confident they would know if a transgendered kid joined their troop.  

The boys at my school shower after gym class.

[Rick_in_CA]

7 hours ago, David CO said:

The boys at my school shower after gym class.

A lot of schools are eliminating group showers in the locker rooms and replacing them with individual stalls. Most of the local schools did that many years ago for the women, and are now doing it for the men. They aren't doing it because of concerns with transgender students (though I'm sure that is becoming one more reason), but because of a dramatic increase in body modesty in our society (lots people equate any nudity with sex - so group showers must be perverted). When I was in high school (and junior high) the guys took group showers after gym. But I was surprised to learn that most of the girls didn't. They used individual stalls (their locker room had a small number of individual stalls in addition to the group shower area - almost all the girls waited to use the stalls). A couple of years after I graduated high school, they apparently rebuilt the girls locker room and eliminated the group showers, it's all individual stalls now.

[bearess]

8 hours ago, David CO said:

The boys at my school shower after gym class.

I teach in Jr/Sr High— the boys are TOLD to shower after gym class, but.......my sense of smell tells me a lot of them are relying on body spray.

When I was in HS the girls did not shower after gym or sports.  Nobody did it, so nobody wanted to be the one weirdo who started doing it!

[David CO]

17 hours ago, Rick_in_CA said:

A lot of schools are eliminating group showers in the locker rooms and replacing them with individual stalls. Most of the local schools did that many years ago for the women, and are now doing it for the men. They aren't doing it because of concerns with transgender students (though I'm sure that is becoming one more reason), but because of a dramatic increase in body modesty in our society (lots people equate any nudity with sex - so group showers must be perverted).

I've heard of that. I'm not sure if has to do with a change in students' attitudes. I think it might have more to do with the adults concerned about false allegations being made against the coaches and locker room supervisors. 

[David CO]

17 hours ago, bearess said:

When I was in HS the girls did not shower after gym or sports.

I wonder how many women raising children in single parent households have passed this attitude on to their sons. 

[shortridge]

17 minutes ago, David CO said:

I wonder how many women raising children in single parent households have passed this attitude on to their sons. 

I wonder what your point is.

[NJCubScouter]

On the showers thing, this has been raised before.  Personally I think a parent of a transgender child is not going to put their child in that kind of situation, up to and including putting the child in a school that is going to make accommodations.  (Of course, the request for accommodations itself is going to notify at least the principal of the school that the student is transgender.  I also suspect that if I were the parent of a transgender youth, I might want his/her teachers to know.)  Unless I have misunderstood his posts, DavidCO is a teacher at a Catholic school, and it seems likely to me that most parents would probably choose a different educational setting for their transgender child.  (No disparagement of Catholic schools here, my wife graduated from a Catholic high school, and a good school it was, and is.  But she is not transgender.    )

[David CO]

1 hour ago, NJCubScouter said:

On the showers thing, this has been raised before.  Personally I think a parent of a transgender child is not going to put their child in that kind of situation,

You would think. But I have learned to not make assumptions about what a parent may or may not think is appropriate. 

A few years back, we had a fourth grader (boy) show up for a sleep-over in the gym without any sleepwear. Assuming that all of the parents would have the good sense to know that a Catholic school would not allow a student to sleep in the nude at the co-ed event, the teacher neglected to clearly state this on the flyer.

I have never met a transgender person, so I really have no idea what they might expect in the way of accommodations. I have read (in the news) that they do expect to have access to washrooms and locker rooms. 

[David CO]

1 hour ago, NJCubScouter said:

Unless I have misunderstood his posts, DavidCO is a teacher at a Catholic school, and it seems likely to me that most parents would probably choose a different educational setting for their transgender child.

You would be amazed at how many people apply to Catholic schools even though they have totally different religious/moral values. 

[Sentinel947]

26 minutes ago, David CO said:

You would be amazed at how many people apply to Catholic schools even though they have totally different religious/moral values. 

And then create a stink in the media when rules are applied based on those Catholic values. 

[Eagle94-A1]

6 hours ago, David CO said:

You would be amazed at how many people apply to Catholic schools even though they have totally different religious/moral values. 

I'm not. I'm the product of a Catholic elementary, high school, and post secondary university. In high school, 30-40% of the students were not Catholic. And that was not just my HS, but all of them. That's because the Catholic schools provided better education than public. Kinda sad really. My mom worked for the public school system, sent my sister and I to Catholic schools. I had friends whose moms taught in public schools, and sent them to Catholic schools. Heck one girl I dated had parents who were principals in the public schools, and sent her and her sister to Catholic school.

 

 

[bearess]

13 hours ago, David CO said:

You would think. But I have learned to not make assumptions about what a parent may or may not think is appropriate. 

A few years back, we had a fourth grader (boy) show up for a sleep-over in the gym without any sleepwear. Assuming that all of the parents would have the good sense to know that a Catholic school would not allow a student to sleep in the nude at the co-ed event, the teacher neglected to clearly state this on the flyer.

I have never met a transgender person, so I really have no idea what they might expect in the way of accommodations. I have read (in the news) that they do expect to have access to washrooms and locker rooms. 

Don’t you think it’s most likely they just forgot to pack pajamas?  I went to the beach last weekend and forgot to pack a swimsuit for my youngest son!  It happens.  I didn’t think it was “appropriate”for him to swim in his clothes, I was just busy, laid his swimsuit on the dresser, and forgot to throw it in the bag.

We have transgender youth at my school— I believe in gym they use the single locker room (added in the eighties for handicap accessibility). I’m not sure, though.  It has happened enough that there are norms in place.  

Interestingly, we recently had step up day, where kids meet their teachers for the next year.   I noticed quite a few kids wearing name tags with their name and preferred pronoun (I teach in a 7-12 school).  None of the kids brought it up as odd that they were asked that by a teacher.  I live in a liberal area, and kids do not seem remotely phased by different gender identities.  

[Buggie]

I'm privy to a few schools in my area and how they handle it in regards to hotels etc. They are assigned to share a hotel room together if they are in the same trans-gendered classification (FTM or MTF). If there is only one, they receive their own room. 

I've come across a few transgender scouts at summer camp, but I don't know how they handled tent assignments as it wasn't in my unit. 

 

[FireStone]

The one case we know of in Scouting, the NJ boy, my understanding of that case is that the only reason anyone found out is because the mother informed leaders, and word spread to a parent who took issue with it. On appearances, no one could tell he wasn’t born a girl.