By BEN FINLEY and JAMIE STENGLE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Scouting America will alter several policies at the urging of the Pentagon, including a requirement that members use “biological sex at birth and not gender identity,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday.
Some of the changes mirror what the organization suggested to the Defense Department in January, which included discontinuing its Citizenship in Society merit badge and introducing a Military Service merit badge as well as waiving registration fees for the children of military personnel.
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“We hope that doesn’t happen, but it could,” Hegseth said. “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.”
Under Hegseth, the Pentagon has taken aim at the military’s partnership with Scouting America, decrying its historic rebrand in 2024 from the Boy Scouts and other changes in recent years that he sees as part of “woke culture” efforts that he wants to root out.
The organization began allowing gay youth in 2013, ended a blanket ban on gay adult leaders in 2015 and announced in 2017 that it would accept transgender students. It began accepting girls as Cub Scouts as of 2018 and into the flagship Boy Scout program — renamed Scouts BSA — in 2019. As of May 2024, more than 6,000 girls had earned the coveted Eagle Scout rank.
The Pentagon said in a statement earlier this month that it was reviewing its relationship with Scouting America, claiming it had “lost its way” in many ways and calling the organization’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts “unacceptable.”
“Scouting America’s leadership has made decisions that run counter to the values of this administration,” the Feb. 6 statement said, ”including an embrace of DEl and other social justice, gender-fluid ideological stances.”
The Pentagon previously said it and Scouting America were nearing an agreement to continue their partnership if the organization “rapidly implements the common-sense, core value reforms.”
“Scouting America remains far from perfect, but they have firmly committed to a return to core principles,” the statement said. “Back to God and country—immediately!
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