A letter to a fellow Girl Scout
Teen Calls for Girl Scout Cookies Boycott Over Transgender Inclusion Policy
I don't tend to respond to these sorts of things. Blanket disagreement is overdone on the internet, and only promotes a feeling of divisiveness and hatred toward people you will never meet or talk to beyond the context of the argument. But it hits close to home because this girl happens to be from Ventura County, which was where I was a Girl Scout for several years. Girl Scouts swear to be a sister to every Girl Scout, so I write this not as a random internet grumbler with the intent to divide, but as an older sister with the intent to unite.
Girl Scouts has served you well, Taylor. You are able to make this video expressing your opinions and providing constructive courses of action for your perceived problem. I like your solutions of donating money to your personal troop and developing your own fundraisers like garage sales. If all troops were as proactive as yours, I think the world would be a better place!
However, it has also done you a disservice in engendering a few attitudes:
You believe that Girl Scouts are safer/better because its members are the same gender as you. Now, if you have never felt threatened by another girl, you are very fortunate! But girls are people. If you are weird, rich, poor, a different religion or otherwise awkward in your social dynamic, other girls can be mean! You can be shunned, mocked, excluded and threatened at school or in your troop. I'm not proud of it, but I've been on both sides of that relationship. And I've been in bad troops before. It was just like a second dose of the people I already had to deal with in school. Even though they were all girls, they were not people I could relate to or felt safe with!
So why sign up? What makes Girl Scouts different? It is the history of Girl Scouts, the core values of acceptance and love for one another and personal growth, and a promise that you will do your part to make it a safe place for one another. That's what you're signing up for as a Girl Scout. It is duty of both the troop leaders and the girls within to actively promote these values, and if there are differences between us, to look past their differences in race, religion, sexual orientation, (and in this case, gender).
You believe that boys can decide on their wishes and desires to join troops without restriction. Now, as per the principles in your video, I would not feel comfortable with a random 18-year-old boy who decided on a whim that he wanted to be surrounded by a gaggle of girls and share a tent with them at Kaleidoscope! This would totally violate my sense of safety! But like I said before, girls aren't necessarily safe, either. Which is why we have a council organizations and leaders to set up some rules and observe all potential problems in our social dynamic and keep us all safe so we can focus on improving ourselves in a constructive environment.
The Girl Scout Organization absolutely gives Trujillo the option of excluding this 7-year-old (or any 7-year-old) if they are not safe to be around. Her research and judgment indicate this 7-year-old is no more dangerous than any other 7-year-old girl. This kid is living like a girl and relates to girls better than boys. The parents accept that they have a girl, not a boy. It's the combination of all of these things that lead Trujillo to the decision to include this kid, not because the kid decided to wear pink one day.
And trust me, this kid is not pretending to be a girl for fun. It's not fun at all to feel like you don't belong in either bathroom, or worry that people will be confused or scared by you. Which is why it means the world to transgendered folks, especially those in their formulative years, to find people and groups who accept them and try to understand where they're coming from. And again, our history of acceptance is what makes Girl Scouts thrive. When we start denying that to well-intentioned people who need a place to grow, we may succeed in keeping our gender, but we lose the spirit of scouting.
But that, of course, is my opinion. You seem like a bright girl with a keen focus on research and facts. That's fantastic! So in the spirit of research, I think you should meet this 7-year-old in Colorado. Observe the troop like a leader would. And think about what you see. How does this kid behave differently than the other members of the troop? How are they the same? Do the girls feel unsafe? Talk to the parents of the kid and the other parents involved in the troop. Then tell me, would you make the same decision as Trujillo or not?
I would be very curious to hear what you find out!
I don't tend to respond to these sorts of things. Blanket disagreement is overdone on the internet, and only promotes a feeling of divisiveness and hatred toward people you will never meet or talk to beyond the context of the argument. But it hits close to home because this girl happens to be from Ventura County, which was where I was a Girl Scout for several years. Girl Scouts swear to be a sister to every Girl Scout, so I write this not as a random internet grumbler with the intent to divide, but as an older sister with the intent to unite.
Girl Scouts has served you well, Taylor. You are able to make this video expressing your opinions and providing constructive courses of action for your perceived problem. I like your solutions of donating money to your personal troop and developing your own fundraisers like garage sales. If all troops were as proactive as yours, I think the world would be a better place!
However, it has also done you a disservice in engendering a few attitudes:
You believe that Girl Scouts are safer/better because its members are the same gender as you. Now, if you have never felt threatened by another girl, you are very fortunate! But girls are people. If you are weird, rich, poor, a different religion or otherwise awkward in your social dynamic, other girls can be mean! You can be shunned, mocked, excluded and threatened at school or in your troop. I'm not proud of it, but I've been on both sides of that relationship. And I've been in bad troops before. It was just like a second dose of the people I already had to deal with in school. Even though they were all girls, they were not people I could relate to or felt safe with!
So why sign up? What makes Girl Scouts different? It is the history of Girl Scouts, the core values of acceptance and love for one another and personal growth, and a promise that you will do your part to make it a safe place for one another. That's what you're signing up for as a Girl Scout. It is duty of both the troop leaders and the girls within to actively promote these values, and if there are differences between us, to look past their differences in race, religion, sexual orientation, (and in this case, gender).
You believe that boys can decide on their wishes and desires to join troops without restriction. Now, as per the principles in your video, I would not feel comfortable with a random 18-year-old boy who decided on a whim that he wanted to be surrounded by a gaggle of girls and share a tent with them at Kaleidoscope! This would totally violate my sense of safety! But like I said before, girls aren't necessarily safe, either. Which is why we have a council organizations and leaders to set up some rules and observe all potential problems in our social dynamic and keep us all safe so we can focus on improving ourselves in a constructive environment.
The Girl Scout Organization absolutely gives Trujillo the option of excluding this 7-year-old (or any 7-year-old) if they are not safe to be around. Her research and judgment indicate this 7-year-old is no more dangerous than any other 7-year-old girl. This kid is living like a girl and relates to girls better than boys. The parents accept that they have a girl, not a boy. It's the combination of all of these things that lead Trujillo to the decision to include this kid, not because the kid decided to wear pink one day.
And trust me, this kid is not pretending to be a girl for fun. It's not fun at all to feel like you don't belong in either bathroom, or worry that people will be confused or scared by you. Which is why it means the world to transgendered folks, especially those in their formulative years, to find people and groups who accept them and try to understand where they're coming from. And again, our history of acceptance is what makes Girl Scouts thrive. When we start denying that to well-intentioned people who need a place to grow, we may succeed in keeping our gender, but we lose the spirit of scouting.
But that, of course, is my opinion. You seem like a bright girl with a keen focus on research and facts. That's fantastic! So in the spirit of research, I think you should meet this 7-year-old in Colorado. Observe the troop like a leader would. And think about what you see. How does this kid behave differently than the other members of the troop? How are they the same? Do the girls feel unsafe? Talk to the parents of the kid and the other parents involved in the troop. Then tell me, would you make the same decision as Trujillo or not?
I would be very curious to hear what you find out!