Boy Scouts of America Is Rebranding With a Gender-Neutral Name
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The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) announced this week it will change its official name to Scouting America, marking the organization’s latest rebrand toward new gender-inclusive principles — and away from its history of sexual abuse scandals.
The organization’s leadership announced the forthcoming changes, which will take effect February 8, 2025, in a press release on Tuesday. In 2018, the 114-year-old organization began welcoming cisgender girls into its Cub Scout program for young children, and rebranded its primary “Boy Scouts” program as “Scouting BSA” the following year. The new name is intended to welcome youth of all genders into its various programs, leaders said this week.
“Though our name will be new, our mission remains unchanged: we are committed to teaching young people to be Prepared. For Life,” wrote Roger Krone, president and CEO of Scouting America, who described the organization as “a welcoming, safe environment where youth can become the best version of themselves.”
“This will be a simple but very important evolution as we seek to ensure that everyone feels welcome in Scouting,” Krone added.
The BSA, as it is still formally known, has implemented significant changes to its membership requirements over the past decade. Beginning in 1978, LGBTQ+ youth and adults alike were formally banned from the organization, a practice which only ended in 2014 for youth and 2015 for adult members. Separately, the BSA also managed to conceal serial sexual abuse allegations against numerous adult leaders for nearly a century before becoming the target of multiple lawsuits in the past 20 years. BSA leadership filed for bankruptcy in 2020, and in 2022, a federal bankruptcy court allowed the organization to establish a $2+ billion settlement fund to compensate victims and allow the organization to continue operations.
Jace King, 17, is the first openly trans youth in their Texas hometown and one of the first in the U.S. to earn the honor.
The “Scouting America” rebrand distances the organization from the BSA’s checkered history, while emphasizing its new, more gender-expansive approach to recruitment. In this week’s press release, leaders asserted that over 6,000 girls have now earned their Eagle Scout badges, the organization’s highest official rank. But although the organization’s official stance now welcomes transgender youth, it may take more time for individual troops to catch up. In 2021, a trans 14-year-old said she was kicked out of her troop after she came out, because there was no all-girls’ troop for her to join instead.
“It was very upsetting. I remember seeing my mom crying. That was like family to us, because when you are with the troop for so long you are family,” the teen told WHAM at the time.
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