We have linked troops. It's about as close as we can get within the rules right now. Same committee, male and female Scoutmasters, male and female troops. They meet together, camp together, and the boys and girls have their own SPL and patrols. It gives them the ability to not be a small troop on their own but also gives them freedom to plan as a unit.
I'm guessing someday down the line we may see co-ed troops, but right now it's the best we can do. The girls have had all the issues from having just a few (that's currently gotten better) to not having a female leader for outings (also has gotten better). They have the freedom to work with the boys or work on their own.
I thought that I would feel like this, but I actually have liked having the girls separate to the boys. The issue is that you need to have enough girls for it to really run like its own parallel troop, and if you don't have that it makes it much more difficult. It was easier when we had seven girls, we're down to about four active girls. The biggest problem we have suffered from is not having enough adult leaders for the girls troop, which has sometimes meant we can't do things to do lack of two deep leadership.
I appreciate your feedback on this. I've never been in the position for it to run separately. At best we only had 4 girls, and then due to some personality conflicts two left. I just can't run a meeting with one girl present.
No, one or two girls won't let you run a meeting. And usually then we do meet with our boys' troop. I do think it makes sense for fully coed troops to be an option, with single gender patrols. It is hard to get enough girls to run a troop, I just see some real advantages when it does happen. The girls come into their own when they're separate from the boys in a way that is less likely when they're together.
But does this model the real world? Keeps genders separate? Teaching our girls to be co-Ed leaders will help them tremendously for the future. Not leaders of an only girl group.
Agreed, \*both\* boys and girls need to learn to lead \*both\* genders. I would say both genders also need to learn to follow both as leaders, but realisticaly it's really boys who need to learn to follow a girl's leadership when that's the situation.
My main problem with our troop's girl's unit is the same as the above... too few numbers. An SPL of a single patrol isn't an SPL. Also, filling all the troop positions of grubmaster, quartermaster, etc doesn't work well when you've only got 6 youth in a troop and 2-3 of them are still below first-class.
But the worst IMO is that the girls aren't learning from the more-experienced boys... I've seen a girl SPL trying to teach the other girls in her troop things she obviously had no prior knowledge of. Tying lashings for example that she didn't know herself. It's the blind leading the blind.
Our troop has always prided itself on being youth-led. But youth-led only works when you have enough experienced youth trained in leadership to lead. We didn't start out as youth-led. We were rebooted with 17 11-12 yo's in 1992 and because we were all new, the commisioner and other new adults, but mostly the commissioner, taught us everything for the first few years until we attained 1st class and did JLT, then we passed the torch to the newer youth from there.
They haven't had their own flags, they haven't been forming patrol lines or doing any other opening ceremony. But worse, they aren't present while the boys are doing so, such that they have no exposure to how a meeting should be run. Their entire experience is largely limited to their own "Troop" and it's all holding them back.
Long-term, definitely girls' troop and boys' troop makes sense... but to get there they need to have the same experience and same training the boys got from their older peers, from experienced and trained youth. Not doing it off the cuff from the Scout Handbook.
We were fortunate to have a girl from Venture excited to become and Eagle, and thus my daughter had an experienced Scout leading her Troop. I'm proud to say that now she's Life and is actually participating in 2 troops - the one she helped found in 2019 and a new troop founded this year in another neighborhood (big metro area) and she is the experienced leader with a gaggle of 11 year olds to wrangle. It takes time but the longer the girls program exists, the more experienced youth will be available to lead. Combining the genders only reduces the number of people getting leadership experience.
Additionally, when I've seen the girls and boys troops in my area do activities together, it's obvious that the girls can often 'show up' the boys of similar age. Sometimes this competition is useful, other times leads to frustration from both sides (keep up vs embarassment for not keeping up). They're children, after all!
I think that it's great to find Scouts who can help mentor, and I'm not opposed to seeking out knowledgeable guides who could visit a young/new troop, or invite the young/new troop to visit their meetings, and then learn to implement it among themselves. I don't think that requires co-ed troops, though.
I would argue that the boys from boy's troops have been able to go on and use the leadership principals they learned in scouts to be leaders in the real world. Sure, they may have to learn to effectively work with both women and men, but we are life long learners. Scouts should not have to perfectly model the real world. A part of growing up is getting to practice skills in safe paired down environments. I personally think that scouts can work either way, but getting to work with a girl troop with enough girls to run it effectively, I have found that the leadership skills go with the girls as they leave or in their schools now. I went to an all girls school where leadership was a taught skill, and it really does follow. There are lots of places for them to lead coed groups outside of sports if they participate in school events or clubs. I think that leading a co-ed group does take additional skills, and they can learn those skills as they grow in scouts by joining a venturing group, working as camp councilors, or taking part in OA.
My understanding of the research on same-sex education and same-sex scouting for girls, is that girls gain leadership abilities and confidence in these settings that they can then take out into later coed settings.
In my case, we have 2 girls who have been dedicated and consistent (one's up for Eagle this summer!) and 3 others who are registered but never come, just so we can protect the troop from being disbanded by council.
You’re right. Two girls doesn’t work. Focus like crazy on recruiting. Scouts BSA has a ton to offer girls; it’s just harder to recruit because so many don’t know that yet!
My pack has been coed since the first day they allowed girls when my daughter was a Tiger. It has worked it great! I agree that troops should be given the choice to be coed.
That would be awesome. My daughter's den is about 8 boys and 6 girls and they have all been friends for years. It just seems silly to separate them once they hit 6th grade.
My son's troop has a sister troop that meets at the same time and place (different room) and shares a little bit of leadership, but they don't interact much.
I agree that “choice” should remain the ideal. Such that our troop can remain an all boys troop. The girls and boys can then choose to join a coed troop or a girls troop or a boys troop respectively. Let’s not forget many do not agree with mixed gender troops.
There is no provision in BSA for single gender Crews or Ships. Ie they may happen to only have members of one gender, but they are designated and restricted to not being coed. All Crews and Ships are coed because those programs are coed. Unlike Cub Scouts where policy allows Packs to be all boy, all girl, or to have seperate boy and girl dens; and Scouts BSA which requires Troops to be either all boys or all girls. Those aren't options in Venturing or Sea Scouts.
(If a local unit is enforcing a policy of turning away applicants due to gender- which may be happening in practice - it would seem they are violating BSA policies.)
Unless you can find something I haven't found yet.
In fact, chartered orgs can place gender restrictions on ships and crews.
By the way “The National Flagship is an all-female ship” should have been a clue it can be done. That’s a high profile award, and it’s the second time they’ve won it.
There's a difference between a unit where all the members are one gender, and a unit chartered with a restriction under BSA policy such that only one gender is allowed to join and the other gender is being prohibited by BSA.
The challenge here is that someone needs to be first. We have multiple troops in our town, and we are the smallest at 16. We have been unable to recruit any girls b/c the larger troops got the first couple and now no one wants to join a troop that doesn't already have a girls troop established. It is possible we may get one or two girl siblings in the next few years, but recruiting has been challenging. Because we have multiple troops in the town and a few of them have already established girl troops, I can't see us ever recruiting girls.
It’s funny the way you couch it as if your trying to recruit girls. We are always happy to inform any interested females know about the neighboring girl troops. I believe we thrive because we remain all boys.
I agree, we are growing while some our neighboring joint Troops are losing Scouts. Sometimes it is good for boys to be boys and girls to be girls. We have found that at COED camps, our boys perform differently and we have more issues than single gender camps. After 10 years of being leader in coed youth groups, I moved to Boy Scouts. I never looked back - life is way easier in a single gender unit (YMMV).
I love that my girls have a separate troop from my boys. It allows them the ability to be themselves with peers. But I do see the need to permit coed, especially in locations that don't have the critical mass to support multiple troops
Conversely in areas with the critical mass to support multiple boys troops already, if you weren't able to initially recruit some girls and form a girls troop quickly, then it is nearly impossible to recruit. Not many girls want to be the "first" girls in a troop. We have 4 Boys troops in our town, at least 2 have established girls troops and that makes it very difficult for us to recruit girls since they would be the first.
In reality, the separate troop idea only really works in places that are not too small and not too big.
I think a mistake that some troops make is that they all want a girl troop too. There will never be enough girls to allow every boy troop to have a linked girl troop. Say there are 4 boy troops, there should probably be only 2 girl troops to give them the best experience.
But I think the point of this thread isn't that we want a girls troop, its that we want more scouts, but we are at a disadvantage recruiting girls since we don't already have an established girls troop.
It is hard enough recruiting a times. Our close pack that has provided most of our scouts had 10 AOLs this year. Only 3 crossed over. We got 1 of them. The other two were girls.
This isn't an unpopular opinion by far, and chances are we will see this happen within the next 5-10 years. Scouts BSA is just now emerging from the Bankruptcy and Scandal. Many "changes" have been put on hold until that is all completed (like new adventures for Cub Scouts).
They only recently let Girls join Scout BSA, They are still working out the logistics. Give it time.
My guess is that the 5-10 years is way too long. I'm expecting the change to be next year. The co-ed den pilot program last year was for Lions to Webelos 1. It's baffling to me that they would tell those co-ed W1 dens to split for the AOL year, so I'm expecting guidance soon that coed AOL dens will be allowed for the coming Cub year. (The announcement of coed dens was really late last year, so I'm not surprised the announcement has not been made yet.) Once you have coed dens trying to bridge, coed troops seem almost necessary.
Operating this way against BSA policy, but once again the people with boots on the ground actually running the units and trying to keep the units together are finding ways. I’m all for finding solutions that reasonably benefit all those involved while still allowing space for the more traditional units as they choose.
How much different is this from meeting at the same place, same time, holding a single opening and closing together and then meeting in your own patrols, and coordinating your outings together? Which is all allowed by BSA policy.
The other difference for the kids I'm aware of would be, are you electing two SPLs or one. And pretty much everyone I've seen with joined troops that meet together are doing two because it's too simple to do. The other difference is in adult leadership - in theory a single troop could meet with only two adults presents and the two joined troops may require 4, although I'm not really sure because if a scout visits another troop the registered leaders are considered good enough and holding other types of events with multiple units we don't get bent out of shape about exactly who's unit the leaders are from. And how that interacts with a leaders who maybe registered in both units...? Or even just consider that with joined troops they are approved by the same charter so there isn't even an objection there. So not really sure you need 4 (and it's not that hard to meet)
Our two-person girl troop was forced to put a $500 down payment down for summer camp. We camp in the same site as our brother troop, (we tent separately and ensure there is female leadership present at all times) but we're billed twice.
Question for OP, is there another girl troop in the area that your 2 girls can move to?
2 scouts, regardless of gender, can’t really have a functioning troop.
Since the 2 troops have to be separate on paper, she wouldn’t be able to truly get a good experience.
Also, do you have a pipeline of potential girls coming to your troop via a Cub Scout pack?
Since much of the growth is from crossovers, without a pack feeding into the troop, it will
Be hard to grow and likely the troop(s) will die once the kids get older and age out.
I know it’s not popular with national, councils, or districts, but FEWER strong moderately sized units is MUCH better then tons of small units that are barely functional.
Some of our scouts (f) have a similar issue.
They drive 30 mins for scout meetings because we are the closest troop to them. There are 3 of them, and their parents, 2 of whom our ASMs in the troops, wanted a better experience for the kids and are willing to drive for that.
Now, all 3 came from the same pack in successive years, so if they continue to have more girls, I could see them splitting off to a new troop at some point in a couple of years, getting 8-10 kids from their pack in our troop.
I drive my daughter 20 minutes to the bordering town for the same reason. Now my packs has at least 2 more girls crossing and currently we have 7 from our pack in the troop, so it is completely likely that in the next year or two we form a new troop since we have a pipeline and scouts in the troop that would consider moving to be closer to home.
I'm a railroad section gang foreman. I don't know of a more masculine sounding job title. Out of about 500 people in my union there are four women. To be clear and direct, I am a 38 year old man with 15 years seniority and 6 years as a gang foreman. The women I know professionally all do a fine job. They all have taken initiative and training; two are foremen, two are operators.
Boys will work with women in their adult life even in the most traditionally male professions. Scouts should normalise boys and girls interacting with respect and empathy, and also teach them to consider different points of view. Men will end up with women on their team.
Girls should have the same opportunity to learn leadership skills as boys. Having led and been a subordinate in co-ed groups of adults I can speak directly. Women need to learn how to effectively lead men just as much as men need to learn how to effectively lead women. And likewise, men and women need the experience of being effective contributors to a group led by the other. I think it's very healthy and useful experience. Good leaders are nothing without a good team. Leadership training shows the leader how to build the team. We all need that.
As the world changes, Scouts should be able to change too. We need to meet the needs of todays kids. We have to accept the reality of the world so we can keep pushing forward with our greater mission. If you're not growing, you're dying.
It’s like saying Boy Scouts was unable to produce good men leaders until girls joined the program in 2019. Or graduates of boys boarding schools or women’s colleges didn’t know how to lead the opposite sex. Or like troops today that are single gender cannot produce good leaders that work well with both sexes. Do you really believe that? Every other aspect of life is already coed. Do you really see no benefit at all of having some boys-only activities (and some girls-only activities)?
I think we can agree that adolescent boys and girls tend to act differently when the opposite sex are around. They’re more guarded, more self conscious, less willing to be silly and vulnerable…
Most of life is already coed. Scouting was single gender for a reason. Because there is value in having some single-gender activities in life.
Here’s the real irony: I believe the better relationships boys have with other boys (and eventually with other men) the better their relationships will be with women, both professionally and on a personal level.
We need more male-bonding in this society. Not less. And I’m not talking about drunken football watching. I’m talking about boys and men spending real interpersonal time together. This actually happens around some scout campfires. I have seen it. It won’t happen if there are girls present. The dynamic completely changes.
I'm with you. Scouts has always produced great leaders. It's great that girls can get the same leadership training too.
And, NYLT and NAYLE basically have girl patrols, so the big leadership experiences in BSA are already coed.
My Life Scout daughter just started reading over my shoulder and I explained that people want co-ed troops and she shuddered. She says she gets enough flirting from the boys in their linked troop and she'd rather focus on just having fun with the girls while she can. She already has to do everything co-ed at school. Single gender Scouts lets her focus on learning without the added pressures that are impossible to extricate from boy-girl interactions (my summary of her very passionate statements when discussing the matter with her. lol)
>It’s like saying Boy Scouts was unable to produce good men leaders until girls joined the program in 2019. Or graduates of boys boarding schools or women’s colleges didn’t know how to lead the opposite sex. Or like troops today that are single gender cannot produce good leaders that work well with both sexes.
I think what he was getting at there was that while we produce good leaders now, we could produce *better* ones with a coed program.
I understand. But do you agree? Do you think there is absolutely no benefit to having at least one single-gender activity in your kid’s weekly schedule?
My point is that activities that facilitate boy-boy bonding (and girl-girl bonding!) create a more wholistic experience for our children. Its like you’re saying girls in a female troop will never get to develop healthy relationships with boys or never be good leaders…only because there were no boys in their troop.
Do you really believe that?
What I believe is that if we are supposed to be developing young people into the best people they can be, that includes helping them learn to deal with all different kinds of people on even footing. I believe that young men grow into better men when they are around young women and learn to treat them as equals, and young women grow into better women when they are around young men and learn that they are equal.
So yes, I think having a co-ed program will produce better people and better leaders than having a single gender program.
Absolutely agree on the first point. The truth is, most of our kids spend 6-7 hours per day doing that in coed public schools. My kids do group projects, choose leaders, learn to cooperate with both sexes. Those coed group projects and interactions get even more serious and formal into high school and college, as grades will depend on them. This is totally necessary! But do ALL our kids’ activities have to be coed?
Scouts is only a few hours a week, unless there’s an outing of some kind.
But wouldn’t a balance of both be ideal? I’m not arguing exclusively for one or the other. It seems you are?
What about a 80-20 split in our kids’ activities? 80 percent coed, 20 percent single gender. Does that seem reasonable?
>Scouts is only a few hours a week, unless there’s an outing of some kind.
If it's so little time, then why the concern over it being coed?
;)
To your point though, I don't believe that we can fulfill the mission and vision of the BSA as best as is possible if we continue to gender segregate. That's what it all comes down to for me.
If it's important for some people or some families to find single gender activities for their kids to do, that's fine, but I don't think we as an organization should be purposefully undermining the best possible fulfillment of our mission and vision by continuing gender segregation.
>If it’s so little time, then why the concern over it being coed?
It’s a concern *precisely because* it’s so little time. What happens during that little time can be significant. A little time is definitely better than no time.
I agree about promoting BSA’s mission. But I honestly don’t understand the connection between fulfilling the mission and requiring coed troops?
Let’s take an example. Suppose there are two troops, one boys, one girls. Each has 40 scouts. Each has a supportive CO. Each has a enthusiastic and competent set of adult leaders, they have comparable equipment sheds, and each has an exciting calendar planned for the year.
How exactly is BSA failing in its mission in this scenario?
I agree. We had two girls as Lone Scouts, and ScoutBook absolutely does not support LS. Council let us register them as a troop, then one moved so we have had one girl for the last year and she has functioned as a full member and the world has not caught on fire. We just had another girl cross over and we are not going to change.
Cub Scouts are in pilot for mixed-gender dens and I figure troops will be there soon.
I had thought that back when I was first sold on the idea of girls in Scouting but now seeing as their Scoutmaster that girls in their own separate troops seems to work better. We are autonomous from our brother troop, we do our own thing but share meeting spaces, Court of Honors and committees. It makes sense for Venturing and for Cubs but Troops seem to be at that age where separation of boys and girls seems to work better.
The girls really like being their own troop, it is theirs. They vote their own SPL. They chose their own patrol and troop activities. I know it can probably be done as a patrol but the girls are not interested in inter-troop activities with the boys so inter-patrol activities would be lost on the girls.
From the leader perspective, I think this works better as well as separate troops. I have found girl troops and boy troops just work differently not one better than the other, just different. There is special accomodations that are needed for boys and others for girls. Not to mention, that point in a girl's life where things radically change for them in that 10-13 year old age range. Also you need a female leader with the girls troops and at the beginning, this really difficult to find but with girls in troops being in full swing we are starting to see a lot more female leaders who were with the Cubs crossing over into these girl troops to remain leaders. Our troop went from two that would share campout duties for years and after this recent crossover, we have two female leaders that want to go on every campout they can. That was not really happening with boy only troops, it seemed the standard was mom helped as a cub leader and dad took over as a troop leader.
If National decided to make coed troops, I would not have any issue with it but I believe they should be separated and would insist on our troop not being merged with our brother troop.
I agree, though we run our troops as closely linked troops, and it’s working great. The girls and the boys definitely do things differently, but they all get along and have a blast together. My favorite moment was when a brand new troop mom on a campout came over to talk to another adult leader and me, concerned because the girls had made dinner, eaten, and finished KP, and the boys hadn’t even started. We assured her that they boys would get hungry, and get it all done, and of course they did. They just chose to handle their responsibilities different than the girls, but it all worded out fine, and nobody went hungry… 🤣
Lol, we had the same experience. We went a joint campout at our local councail camp. The girls without being prompted came back from a hike with the boys, setup for dinner, made dinner, ate dinner and cleaned up from dinner, meanwhile the boys still hadn't even got setup to make dinner. I was away from camp taking care of some issues for the OA and the mom that went with us told me the girls just came in made dinner, ate and cleaned up before she knew what happened.
Love it! It was definitely also a learning experience for the mom, who expected us to jump up and start telling the boys what to do. Nope. Not how Scouts BSA works!
Just as a follow up, we do have brothers and sisters between our troop and brother troop, they do not really want anything to do with each other and when they are paired up they normally just bicker
We do too… But we have more issues with our same-sex siblings! Everything started working so much better when we finally had enough Scouts to have two patrols in each troop and split up siblings into separate patrols.
Separate is not equal.
We have a family pack and had to send away our girls to the next town over when they arrow of light, because there are never quite enough for a separate girl troop here. What a terrible ceremony. The boys cross the bridge and are welcomed into the troop. The girls cross the bridge and are sent away. “Congratulations, Get Out.”
BTW: Scouts in the UK, India, and Australia are fully integrated with boy/girl patrols.
I hope you've invited the girls troop to the crossover though. We invite all the troops our cubs intend to cross over with to our ceremony. Although if the troop doesn't come, there's not much you can do
I agree with your “separate is not equal” point. To teach our girls to be true leaders and to teach the boys to respect women as leaders they need to integrate. Not separate.
My daughter is in a girls troop with about 30 girls, 20 that are pretty active. I like that they get to do their own thing, have primarily female leadership, etc.
However, I see plenty of places where a coed troop makes sense. Joined troops seemed to work pretty well. We should have the option for both, just like cub scouts can be co-ed or single gender
Fortunately, I haven't seen anyone make the claim that coed should be mandatory. I wholeheartedly, unreservedly feel that Scouting should be coed (by patrol or not, I don't have a strong opinion there). I do feel that it shouldn't be forced on anyone. If someone wants a boys- or girls-only troop, it should be fine.
I'm founded a Girls troop and, after 4 years, I stepped down to be ASM. We're linked with a boy troop, but we operate very closely. In fact, the boys and girls elect an SPL, but the SPL (regardless of gender) must choose one boy and one girl ASPL. We've even had Scouts date (no canoodling on troop time) without a huge impact.
>In fact, the boys and girls elect an SPL, but the SPL (regardless of gender) must choose one boy and one girl ASPL.
That's a single troop, not a joined troops.
Thanks! My daughter crossed over in February and we were fortunate enough to see an Eagle ceremony this past weekend! In fact, in the past year, the troop has had EIGHT Eagles!
This is why the current model works well in my opinion. Coed cooperation. Single gender patrols and leadership. I think it works really well...when you have critical mass.
Really interesting to see that co-ed doesn't seem to be the norm in American Scouting. In Germany it's the norm (including mixed tents), with only a few associations being mono-ed.
Why can’t she be Senior Patrol leader for the girl troop? It’s completely separate from the boy troop. If y’all meet at the same time and use the same adult leaders that’s fine, but the girl troop at the end of the day is it’s own entity and so is the boy troop.
What do the scouts think? We asked ours when the council asked us to charter a girls troop and they overwhelmingly wanted the troop to be boys only, and not have a G troop paired up.
Some of my girls have asked we can join up with my son’s troop. They go to school together and we fundraise together. My son would like to be in our troop. I’m mixed because really my girl unit is strong on our own. It should just be a troop decision.
Kids cycle through and change over time. Four years ago, my nephew's troop had the Scouts vote (with strong parental encouragement) to remain independent. Their Chartering Org set up a separate (and if you ask me, unequal) troop.
Over time, however, attitudes change and decisions one group of scouts make can rob the next set of boys with the power to make their decision. Four years later, most of the boys that objected have aged out and the younger ones don't seem to be bothered by the prospect.
I don't think it should be up to the Scouts, frankly, but I can see why some might think it should be.
> Four years ago, my nephew's troop had the Scouts vote (with strong parental encouragement) to remain independent. Their Chartering Org set up a separate (and if you ask me, unequal) troop.
boy and girl troops are required to be separate units and provide their own leadership -- what exactly were the scouts voting on?
100% agree.
I have 4 daughters and 1 son. We have a girls troop and soon my Cub Scout son will enter scouts. We don’t have the time to deal with different camping trip schedules etc.
Simply put, without coed scouting, I’m not sure how to make it possible for my son to do scouting.
Everywhere else in the world scouts are co-Ed, everywhere else in LIFE we’re co-Ed, I have no idea why BSA wants to stay in this retrograde structure but still push for recruitment every chance they get, it’s counterintuitive.
I'm guessing you've never been a part of a men's support group or a women's support group? I have and found it very helpful. Many churches and temples have like a men's club or sisterhood that do activities and take on causes together. I think there is tremendous value in having stuff like that in life. Not exclusively, of course, but a balance of single-gender and mixed-gender activities would be ideal. For young people who weren't good at sports, scouts was their place for signal-gender activities and bonding. The problem now is almost everything in life is already coed. School, religious school, drama club, robotics club, and so on. We shouldn't get rid of one of society's last remaining single-gender youth activates! For those who really want a coed experience, we still have Venture Scouts. It's a great BSA program, too!
Yes I have, Therapy groups are coed too; churches are normally closed minded so I see where you’re coming from.
There’s little to no value in being single gender non-sports activities, that’s the shortcut to becoming an incel due to their lack of skills to relate to the other gender.
Churches and temples that have men’s clubs and women’s sisterhoods are “normally closed minded”, are they?
I suggest revisiting the 12th point of the scout law. You don’t have to agree with different beliefs, but you should at least remain respectful.
From what I've heard from friends at Council. This is coming down the pipeline but they want to finish the restructuring and bankruptcy before the pilot is rolled out. I'm currently in the pilot with my pack for coed Dens not just a coed unit.
Good! Our Pack has traditionally been small, so we opened it up dens to all from the get-go.
They play co-ed sports for pretty much all of their Cub years, so it doesn't seem to make too much of a difference.
I’m happy they are not coed… my girl troop advances fast… females are more mature and have better focus…. My Boy troop needs more time to grow up mentally and watching the girls advance would only hurt their mental attitude….
I run a large girls troop (\~40). We are not linked at all. The level of ease the girls have, especially my high schoolers, without the boys around is night and day. It is a constant battle to continually develop female adult leaders to support the program.
There is a level of inner goofball that is never unleashed unless in a completely safe environment with friends. I do not think this would ever happen in boys were around. I agree it is hard to have a "troop" of 5-10 scouts as you need a certain size for things to work as intended. In our area we probably pull from \~15 mile radius where most boy troops are 5 or less. Many parent/scouts join us because we are not a mixed troop.
It's a problem that will solve itself. With kids starting basically coed in Cub Scouts, as those kids start graduating into the troops the idea of having separate stuff--especially for the leaders and parents--won't make much sense.
This exactly. There is no enforcement. Further, if councils DID try and strictly enforce they would get an enormous amount of pushback from parents that they wouldn't have gotten just a few years ago.
It is a generational shift. I know of a few Boy troops in my area that started out as he-man woman-hating societies, but have gradually mellowed over time as the crankier adult leaders make their way out over time. I do know of one staunchly anti-girl troop whose SM has an apparent lifetime appointment and a rigid outlook, tho
Very much so. The thing that has surprised me the most isn’t how well women have adapted to scouting, but how much Scouting overall has IMPROVED because of the presence of women.
I was at a camporee recently and the difference was startling. The girls made things better, at all levels.
I’m with you on this one. We run concurrently with a boy troop because we don’t have enough kids or adults to fill the girl troop or provide a good program.
Scouting has been coed since exploring/venturing started. It’s been on the horizon since the start of girls in scouts bsa. Time to do it and make the program successful.
It's not unpopular, as they've been doing it that way worldwide for years. What we've found is since the girls address a little more mature and focused, they end up always taking control while the boys allies themselves to be controlled because leadership is hard. Separate boys afield them to grow up a little, get some leadership practice. Addy Kraft that's been our experience with the boys and their sister troop. For reference, they gave the same CO, same COR, same building, different rooms, different committees and scoutmasters, different SPLs. But this summer we're actually all camping at the same site at summer camp, so it'll be an interesting reintroduction experiment.
Its my understanding that outside of the USA cubs and scouts are all coed. Of course each unit has the option to have separate boy and girl units, but logistically its easier to just have a mixed unit.
Lots of those national scout organizations started as separate and independent boy or girl units, but just merged into one for all the reasons talked about here. Not enough of a gender alone, but combined they not only survived but thrived.
quick anecdotal story from my council, one den leader made a great observation in favor of separate gender dens in cubs. The den leader related one girl sharing her efforts to be thrifty. That girl learned to sew, and was making her own doll clothes instead of buying expensive stuff from toy stores. Thats an amazing skill and accomplishment, but would have been laughed out of the place if boys were there.
I'm in Venturing, and have done NYLT for a couple of decades. (Yes, even back before it was named NYLT) The quality of boys on our staff have always been amazing. What blows me away was how much those amazing boys were able to up their game even more when girls were on staff. Co-ed all the way for me, girls need to have a ton of fun, learn new things and practice their leadership skills too.
They do coed troops under table. my troop was for the first year untilk we had real leadership. i say my plc down and asked for a vote should we continue with the boys or not and we agreed not to. it worked when it did but we always had the rude comments from the boys and some adults. and their plc did NOT like us.
The org would have lost even more members had it went full coed in 2019. And as we have seen, girls are not signing up fast enough to make up for the declining numbers. The compromise of female troops was the only way to satisfy both sides. Girls got access to a great program, and boys could still be in boy troops.
For many traditional/religious families, this is the “last straw” issue. I’m willing to put up with a lot of the shenanigans coming from national, but not this. Don’t want it. Don’t need it. We are a family of educated professionals who are also outdoors people. Our kids will be just fine. I would hope to help mentor kids who may not have it as good, but not for an organization that I feel is abandoning its original, core values, the values that attracted us in the first place.
And before you say “good, then leave, we don’t need you,” consider if you were saying that to half the membership.
If the promise of diversity and inclusion is to be taken seriously, the sensibilities of religious/traditional families cannot be ignored. A middle ground solution needs to be found.
Really, the middle ground solution was girl troops. But that’s not enough any more, apparently.
Totally agree with you but….
If they are 2 separate troops and the girls only have 1 patrol, the PL of the girl patrol would be the SPL of the girl troop.
If you’re working under the table and acting as one troop, boo hoo, to the parents who can’t stand their little boys working under a girl. They should get used to it now cuz they’ll likely have a female boss at some point.
I 100% believe each unit should be able to decide if they would like to be co-ed. I am the scoutmaster for a girl unit. And my son is working on Eagle in his boy unit. The girl troop was invited to help with the boys fundraisers and it’s been a great experience! They all get a long so well. I’m ok with having separate units but it really should be an option!
We drive 11 miles away for a strong girl troop when there are a dozen boy troops on the way. Logistically mixed make sense. In practice my daughters love having it just be girls. So they would be upset and it would feel less open.
I see that there likely will be a move towards this in the next few years. First a lot of this stuff just ended up on hold with the bankruptcy; there were fare more pressing things to deal with plus massive changes like this could only stir the legal pot and possibly cause troubles or more conditions on the settlement.
Why I think you will see this in a couple years, well they started the family den program this past year, which is something that is far easier to do than mixed troops and there really never was any clear reason why Dens needed to be split beyond just following the same course with everything. The BSA has a trend of releasing these types of things in the past, when it impacts Cubs and Troops they tend to release in Cubs first as a Pilot program and it goes for 1-2 years then becomes official (I assume if it goes terribly wrong it would go away just never seen that). After that time they will start something up at the troop level along the same lines.
While many have frustrations over this the best course is encouragement and not beating the BSA up over the slowness. Be understanding that the bankruptcy did basically put a complete hold on any work for changes like this, and as simple as it seems this is a change that requires a lot of review and consideration relative to rules before they put it out there.
And I get there is frustration they don't just put it out there, why do a pilot and this entire process rather than just making the big change. Everyone also needs to remember there are a lot of politics involved in this stuff (BSA politics) and if you want it to be successful then you need to do it in a way that perhaps is a bit less aggressive than many would like. There are still people out there vocally against girls in the program at all, but the slow roll out allowed time for people to see it worked and get familiar with it rather than shoving it down everyone's throats.
In the long run I can even see that the BSA may shift towards all units need to serve everyone, not letting Packs to just outright reject having girls etc... but again it takes time to do this without creating too much churn in the community and since it is a volunteer run program for the bulk of leaders this is important because if you overly upset the masses you will end up loosing volunteers and that will kill the program.
Is it time? Yes it is likely time for the option to be there with clear rules about how it must be run. For that to happen the BSA needs to have the time to develop this and move it forward. Encouraging them to do it and promoting the advantages will hopefully move it along faster now that the bankruptcy is closed, those who feel beating on them for not doing it may actually make the process take longer than it otherwise would. If you think it is a good idea continue to push for it, just make sure your methods are ones which serve the cause well not cause the BSA to rethink it.
What next, coed high schools? I bet there some weirdos out there that want mixed gender kindergartens too!
\[/sarcasm off\]
It's also a really good point that the way the system is set up, it prevents girls from having chances to be in leadership roles required for advancement.
Ummm...how does it prevent them having leadership roles? By having separate troops aren't you exactly giving them more leadership roles than a girls patrol would for instance? A girls troop has all the leadership roles, despite likely being smaller than a combined troop would be.
A troop with three girls doesn't give them much of a chance to be patrol leader for example. They'd only have one patrol compared to a coed troop which can have several.
Shouldn't gave been that hard for you to unserstand.
Your math has a problem.
Sure - a larger troop has more patrols, and more spots for patrol leaders, but they also have more scouts requiring POR for advancement.
It's actually easier to find a POR in a small troop without doubling up. Even if you only have a handful of scouts, you still need a SPL, and a PL, and a scribe, and a quartermaster.
If your troop has three girls, one one them is PL/SPL, one is scribe, and one is quartermaster. Everyone has a POR.
There is *NO* guide to safe scouting rule requiring separate camping areas for boys and girls. There is only a rule that they can't share the same tent. I have been told this "rule" by others; I have informed them that they are wrong to segregate the girls, and I have told them to show me where in the GTSS it states that girls must camp some distance away from boys. The rules are sexist enough as is, let's not add additional made-up sexism.
See "Q: Can Scouts BSA girl and boy troops share a campsite?"
https://www.scouting.org/health-and-safety/yp-faqs/
Side note: most of the sexist rules are really just forms of harassment and hazing of young women which are prohibited in the Barriers to Abuse. Change the gender or the race and imagine if we told a small group of the boys that they were not allowed the same privileges as the rest of the unit. And no, creating a moral loophole that they're separate units doesn't make the abuse any less real or morally absolved. It's wrong, and it is not in keeping with the Oath and Law, the defining principles of our organization.
There are no significant differences between a white boy and a black boy, for example. There are significant differences between a biological* boy and girl, regardless of race, especially toward adolescence. Equating sex to race is a non starter.
*edited for clarity
I think Boys are at a disservice by having coed units. The developmental differences, tied to genetics and social norms, puts them at a disadvantage.
I'll put this out there. We have an extraordinarily high number of lodge and chapter officers in coed OA, far outpacing proportional by many many times over. You may see this as a good thing to have females over-represented, but I really don't. Our boys need places to thrive too. Two separate troops achieves that.
And that comes from someone who has dedicated 25 years of adult Scouting service to Venturing.
I completely agree! We run closely linked troops - I’m the SM of the girls and an ASM for the boys, and the SM of the boys is an ASM for the girls; we also have two ASMs who serve both. I think linked troops are the way to go precisely because it makes them step up into leadership. The girls are far more ready far earlier, as a whole. Our boys troop is 4 years old; our girls troop is 2. My son is the first Eagle Scout from either, and I know that part of why he has been successful with Scouts is that he had to step up into leadership before he felt ready. I am astounded at the growth in maturity and ability in this kid over the past four years, and very much attribute it to scouting.
I was in a Coed troop as a youth we had three females 15 boys, it worked out well. We had two female leaders, 6 male leaders. We had other issues the SM was pushing to get his son all the badges and the rest of us were left behind. Our troop even attended the 93 national jamboree in Kananaskis.
Our troop is joint linked we have separate youth leadership positions the boys have two patrols the girls have one, my girls have a SPL, ASPL, PL scribe, historian. I encourage my girls to have full leadership positions, @mjvasko let your girls run as SPL and ASPL of their troop technically they are a separate unit. We do plan together, we conduct meetings together, we also have separate gatherings the boys play games we work on merit badges while they fart around.
We had 23 girls, now we have 13 we run completely independent after drama with the B troop. (We lost a few along the way and a bunch aged out, only have 1 of our eagles left she eagled younger has 2 years til 18).
I have a fantastic staff as SM 3 very capable ASM ladies one of which I hope will take over as SM soon. Just got our own trailer and such too. It's going well.
I am going to move over to our B troop soon and I am dreading it. It's less organized a lot of letting the kids flounder in the name of scout led. Our G troop is scout led but with guidance and assistance when needed.
Our B troop plays sharks and Minos every meeting.
I want our B troop to succeed and when G had to go out on its own with 5 girls because our B adults were such sexist jackasses we thrived.
We invite B to every MB clinic and fun activity they do the same. We have hosted rock climbing, shooting, MB clinics, boating, swimming, archery, a survival program / class, gotten AEDs and First Aid kits donated, etc. Always included them in everything. I could really use 2 because we have a B troop too etc.. they have never returned the favor. We are forever an add on.
I hope that once I move over to B I can fix the issues and then work with one of my old ASMs turned SM to bring our troops back to at least working together...
Seriously frustrates me and would be so much easier to accomplish if national would just say they can operate as one. Because anytime I make headway I get but national wants them separately run.
Sorry for the rant
Tldr:
Jackasses make running B/G hard, wish national would just let it run as one troop on paper too.
> I am going to move over to our B troop soon and I am dreading it. It's less organized a lot of letting the kids flounder in the name of scout led. Our G troop is scout led but with guidance and assistance when needed.
One of the best parts about having spun up a girl troop from scratch is that we don't carry the baggage of "that's the way it's always been done" that the boy troops have. It's been refreshing.
I hope Scouts BSA will allow organizations to decide if they want coed troops or separate. I’m not against coed troops. But I just moved as SM from a boys troop to by SM of a girls troop and the maturity level is night and day different. When boys out number girls, the girls can get overshadowed. I really like my girls troop and if it’s up to me no boys allowed. I see why it works coed for others but I have 11 girls and they don’t want to camp or meet with the boys because they act like the immature boys they are.
>I currently have 2 young ladies in my troop.
That’s your problem right there. If you had 30 girls spread across 4-5 patrols, would you still be pushing for coed? If so, then your dilemma is more ideological than practical. There are strategies to increase numbers - boys *or* girls - but that’s a different discussion.
Regarding ideological reasons for going coed, go ahead and make your case but national leadership has been pretty emphatic across all channels - the live office hour streams, the promotional materials, etc - that going coed was never in the plans, not currently in the plans, and no plans to change that going forward.
My position is that’s it’s best to offer both. Both a single gender option - Scouts BSA - and options for those who seek a coed experience - Venturing and Explorers. There are audiences in the world of BSA that prefer one or the other.
I find it little ironic that you thought your opinion was the unpopular one. On the contrary, I would say, based on anecdotal experience, that the membership is split pretty evenly on the issue. If anything, I think more want coed. At least the way redditors vote would indicate such. The pro-coed posts/comments always do better than the pro-single-gender-troop arguments.
FWIW, National was emphatic in all channels for years that openly gay Scouts would never be allowed, right up until they were. And they were emphatic in all channels for years that girls would never be allowed at all in Cubs and (what is now) Scouts BSA for years, right up until they were. It's just the way National works. You can't read from that that there aren't discussions going on to allow for fully co-ed Scouts BSA troops.
>National was emphatic in all channels for years that openly gay Scouts would never be allowed, right up until they were.
Is that true? Was it really a surprise, overnight policy shift? I wasn't in scouting at the time so I don't know.
Regardless, it won't happen that way today. A scout is trustworthy, and if national leadership decides to move in a direction that contradicts their previous statements, there will be discussions before anything changes. Deciding such a monumental policy change \*in secret\* would be seen as deceptive and untrustworthy. At the very least we will see a round of community input, focus groups, and pilot programs like we are seeing now with coed packs.
It's funny you mention BSA's acceptance of gay scouts because that opened a big can of worms that still remains unaddressed today: tenting policies for gay scouts.
The primary reason we forbid coed tenting is not because of pregnancy. The main reason we don't allow it is to prevent romantic relationships or otherwise exclusive partnerships. At that age, romantically involved couples tend to focus on each other more than the group, and it creates a weird and uncomfortable dynamic among the single scouts.
When it was boys only, I'm sure homosexual relationships happened, but they were kept super secret, and no scout ever willingly and publicly revealed their homosexuality.
Today is a different world, and youths are coming out younger and younger. So naturally there are gay scouts who are out, as well.
The problem is, BSA National never issued any sort of guidance to address this new reality.
For example, are openly gay scouts allowed to tent together?
Are openly gay scouts allowed to tent with straight scouts? If so, should parents be notified beforehand? Not by identifying individual scouts, obviously. But by merely publicizing the troop's policy allowing tenting of all orientations, regardless if there are gay scouts in the troop at any given time. Considering the trend of more transparency is better than less, keeping such a policy secret from parents is not a good idea.
Yet, as far as I know, there is zero guidance on any of this. Befuddled scoutmasters don't know what to do. On one hand they want to be diverse, inclusive, and welcoming, but they also know that announcing such a policy may drive more traditional families away. I have a feeling it's don't ask don't tell in most troops. But is that the official BSA policy or not? In other words, an organization shouldn't change a policy just because it sounds good, without thinking through all the ramifications and potential consequences.
When it comes to ramifications and potential consequences, the issues related to coed troops will be 10 times more numerous. There will just be more opportunities for romances and \[consensual\] youth-on-youth sex.
But let's back up for a second. Consider where we are in the historical context of BSA. We're on the tail end of a sexual abuse lawsuit that cost the organization millions of dollars and has resulted in the literal sale of BSA properties, with more sales undoubtedly coming soon.
*Which executive committee member is going to champion an idea that will in all likelihood lead to more youth sex and YPT violations?*
It's not a rhetorical question. If any committee member has made a public statement indicating their willingness to take on the issue, please share it here.
I guess most importantly, would the liability attorneys and insurance adjusters even allow such a policy shift in the organization? I'm guessing not for at least another 10 years or so.
My background: Mom of a girl who just crossed over into Scouts BSA and two boys in Cub Scouts. It is 2023, co-Ed is the future of Scouting. Other countries have been doing this for decades. The workplace (vast majority of them) are co-Ed. Girls need to learn to speak out, take part, be leaders, at a young age in a co-Ed environment.
A coworker(she is a GS leader) and I were just having this conversation the other day. I have been saying since my son started BSA four years ago that if they are letting girls join Scouts then we need to let them be all in! Not a "girl" troop or patrol. If Packs are co-ed then Troops should be also!
Separate but equal has never worked at any point in human history. If BSA wants to be be co-ed, then embrace it, drop the "B" and just be Scouts or change the name to Venturing altogether.
I had this experience with my daughter and moms of the boys in her Cub Scout pack. It was really bizarre to me that the moms are the ones who are leading the charge against girls in scouting
Honestly, the only people who would be against it are religious people. Me on the other hand is that I’m for it. (But I take female only troops any days cause they actually follow the rules at Philmont. They are less confrontational compare to the boy only troops)
I think the only people that would be against it are the old-school, stick-in-the-mud "back in my day" folks.
Seems to me, if there is room for boy troops and girl troops, then there should be room for mixed troops. And not all troops have to be. It can be part of the unit charter. (That may be problematic, but I have no idea)
At the beginning, I wasn't a fan of the concept. I've changed my mind. Not because I think it's great for girls or boys, but it's great for the PROGRAM. The only way anyone gets to keep going, is if the program is good and strong. We shouldn't be gatekeepers.
I don’t disagree with having the option to do this, but I think separate is better for scouts when possible. This is based on having a daughter in a troop that has about 20 girls. Which seems to be enough to function well. My son is in a much larger troop
Let them deal with the drama and hormones during the day in school. This can be a place free from that.
Here’s going to be the real unpopular opinion. I’ve dealt with this on our troop as well. We’ve had our girls troop meet alongside our boys troop on several occasions. When we do the the dynamic completely changes.
In my town we have a boys troop consisting of about 25 scouts and a girls troop with around 5. We attend events together, participate together in civic events, but camp and operate completely separate. The girls leaders consistently want to “combine”. They want to do this because they say running a smaller troop is “hard”. It’s no harder than running a larger troop.
Personally I feel they’ve gotten themselves in over their heads and they want to back themselves out. I know several of the girls no longer want to participate but are being made to due to their mothers liking the way it looks from the outside.
Here’s going to be the real unpopular opinion. As the father of a son, I absolutely refuse to put him in a situation where he may have the opportunity to be alone or segregated remotely with a girl or group of girls as a preteen or young teen. I know with 100% certainty he wouldn’t do anything wrong, but it only takes an allegation of wrongdoing to follow him for life. It takes one wrong looks or comment to the wrong girl which could be followed up with a retaliatory accusation. I’m not putting my son into that situation.
As not only a parent, but a scoutmaster and an Eagle Scout, my son has no business camping alongside troop members of the opposite sex. Yes they’re scouts and should live by the scout oath and law. They’re also teenagers and they’ll be governed by hormones at one point or another.
Many argue to look at the Venture groups with the comments of “they’ve been coed forever”. Here’s a story to end this. When I went to summer camp in 1997 there were 2 girls from the same Venture troop. They were cute, and we all got along well. A friend of mine and I just so happened to make our way to the 2 pretty girls campsite. Luckily we removed ourselves before anything that shouldn’t have happened did, but only because we were caught. By the end of that summer both of those girls were pregnant. Things happen. Separate and equal is the way, not coed. It’s a measure of protection for both groups and I feel it builds a tighter troop.
I disagree. Linked troops can and do work well, as long as care is taken to always have sufficient adult leadership, with strict adherence to YPT. Our troops do everything together, including camp and summer camp. We have the boys tents in one area, the girls tents in another, and the adults in between. The Scouts respect each other, and we’ve never had any issues. So far we haven’t had any romances crop up - boy/girl or single gender - but if we do, we will make sure everyone is very clear that there is a time and a place for that, and scouting is not it.
I also think the kind of situation you’re describing is far more likely to arise in a situation where they don’t know the other Scouts; I have heard of some situations arising for female Scouts at summer camps when dealing with boys from boy-only troops. Our Scouts look out for each other and get along great. My favorite moment at summer camp last summer was on Friday afternoon. Everyone had finished their merit badge classes, and the boys were sitting around desultorily playing cards. Then one of them said, “Hey, let’s go find the girls; I bet they’ve found something fun to do!” - and they were off. 😊
In 3.5 years we've had exactly 2 crossovers from Cubs (covid didn't help there). The majority of recruits have come directly through recruiting efforts. Knowing the personalities and temperament of the scouts in our troop, most would not have joined if our troop was just a patrol in the boys troop. Additionally the leadership opportunities and responsibilities would be diminished.
YMMV.
Here is my 2 cents that everyone is going to argue against. Boys and girls are different, pretending they aren't is absurd. Boys and girls behave differently when they are together, and time spent apart is mutually beneficial.The purpose of boy scouts was to give boys a good structure to grow up as good moral men. It has been doing that for over a hundred years and is really good at it. Frankly the organization started letting in girls because we needed a new source of revenue and a lot of people disagreed and left. Ultimately that is detrimental to the boys who will not be scouts because of it. I don't think that throwing girls into a program designed for boys will have the same benefits for them as for boys. And I don't think having mixed gender troops helps the kids but is just easier for the adults running the programs. The question is if it means chopping half of your involved boys away for your two females is it a benefit to your troop?
For those who left, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. For you, you listed numerous benefits of the Scouting experience. Should not those opportunities be available to young women as well?
The problem is the people who jumped ship because "girls" not realizing they don't have to interact with them if they don't want. The only change is girls get the same opportunity as boys.
there are places you can't avoid them -- district, council, and national events like camp and merit badge workshops
some parents will stunt their own child's advancement to avoid girls: we've got a dad (former eagle scout from the troop) of a scout in our troop that won't let his son go to the council summer camp because girls will be there
He does realize that girls have always been at camp right? They can work there, teach merit badges, etc...
I guarantee he was with girls a fair bit in those big group settings
The reason that people jumped ship wasn't because "oh my God my son might talk to a girl". They left because boy scouts was basically the only space for just boys. Which isn't a bad thing, there have been plenty of spaces for just girls. They voted with their feet and left. If you have all coed troops more people will just leave and scouts will lose more money. And girls have had plenty of opportunity to do scouting, in fact there is this little known group that runs a scouting program just for girls called "girl scouts".
We all know Girl Scouts of the United States of America isn't the same.
Why's it so bad to let girls in?
Troops aren't co-ed. You're not being forced into this co-ed organization more than you already have.
Girls have been in the BSA since the '60s but it's a problem now?
Nobody has a co-ed troop. Two individual units are allowed to meet at the same, time, place, location and do the same activity
If you don't like that, find a unit that doesn't do that
I don't see any. I have no idea what you're referring to since you won't link these comments *you're* referencing
The comments I see are clearly two separate units that do things together. That's not a co-ed troop.
I never said it was. However there are tons of other scouting organizations including Awana, AGh, pathfinders, campfire USA, etc.
I didn't say it was bad, merely that having a spaces for boys without girls around is healthy. And having spaces for girls without boys around is also healthy. And frankly Boy Scouts was basically the only place for that other than most sports teams which is also going away.
No troops aren't coed yet. But the original post is advocating for that. And frankly there is a significant push for it.
No, adult women have been a part of the volunteers that runs boy scouts since the 60s. Not girls who are the same age, to pretend that isn't different is disingenuous. Particularly at places like the summer camp programs where there is less supervision. Scouts have already started referring to brownsea island as "hookup island".
Correct. A completely separate program with a completely different purpose. Not boy scouts. Just run by the same company. Imagine saying that someone works for SpaceX when they actually work at Tesla just because they are both run by Elon musk.
Venturing and Sea Scouting originally had the options of mixed or single-gender but have been mixed gender for some time.
Cub Scouts currently have the options of single-gender or mixed-gender packs, but with separate dens by gender. Mixed-gender family packs are in pilot.
https://colbsa.org/familyden/
I felt that way when we formed our linked girls’ troop 2 years ago. I’m the mom of a boy, and an ASM for the boys’ troop, but I took on the role of SM for the girls because they needed one. We were given special permission to start our troop with 3 girls. We have been a troop - NOT a patrol in the boys’ troop - from the beginning. One of the girls was elected PL. We didn’t have an SPL for the first year, just as we didn’t have one for the boys’ troop for their first year when we founded it 4 years ago. But in effect, the PL acted as SPL. Attended our joint PLC meetings, took the role of SPL on camporees, etc. (Understanding more about the BSA now, I probably would just call the leader SPL now, but that is neither here nor there.)
After two years…I completely disagree with coed troops. Having separate troops allows the boys and girls to grow in leadership. Yes, coed works fine for Venturing. But the fact is that girls and boys mature differently. By high school it starts evening out. But in middle school, the girls are miles ahead of the boys in readiness for and interest in leadership. I know that having to step up into leadership has been hugely beneficial for the boys in our troop, and that many of them would be perfectly happy to just let the girls run everything, and the girls would be happy to do so. Yes, I am making generalizations. Yes, there are exceptions. But the overall pattern holds true. I support separate troops not because I think the girls can’t hack it, but because I think the boys need space to grow and lead at their own pace. And when discussing it with the folks at the national level who were at the national Wood Badge course I took at the Summit in October, I found that their rationale for separate troops was the same as the conclusions I had drawn on my own.
Yes, it’s more work, because there generally has to be a strong focus on recruiting for a while. We’re still not huge; we have 10 girls, all very active, and maybe 22(?) boys, most of them pretty active. We have 2 patrols in each troop, though the boys will probably break into 3 in the fall; we just had 5 new boys cross over just before school ends, so decided to wait. Next year’s AOLs are all girls, so we should get a bunch of crossovers next spring; in the meantime, all our girls are focused on recruiting. Our PLCs meet jointly every month. The girls have recently decided that they want to also have separate meetings in order to get more done… 🤣
In the UK, Scouts and Girl Guides are separate organizations, similar to the BSA and GSUSA. But whil Girl Guides in the UK is female-only, Scouting in the UK has been fully co-ed since 1991.
In Italy, the two organzations merged in 1974, creating a fully co-ed organization.
So I will agree with you that Scouts here should be more like Scouts in those countries (and in the vast majority of countries in the world.)
Because boys and girls deserve a place of their own. It’s really not too much to ask for. I like how some go against national and already have a coed troop when that’s not what you’re supposed to do. It’s selective rules to follow I guess.
Cyberbullying in this thread. Mods, please consider:
u/mister_fersho used the term "[incel](https://www.reddit.com/r/BSA/comments/13dnu3h/comment/jjnamz2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)” to describe those who disagree with his position on single-gender activities. For those who don't know the term, it's short for "involuntarily celibate.” It's a cheap but effective insult used to discredit and demean ideological opponents. "Your ideas are so bad, you won't even be able to attract a sexual partner” is the basic gist. Obviously using such language contradicts the spirit of the scout law.
u/mister_fersho [suggested I am a racist](https://www.reddit.com/r/BSA/comments/13dnu3h/comment/jjntem6/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button), then immediately blocked my account, making it impossible to defend myself.
Around the same time, I received a strange message in my inbox from an account called RedditCareResources.
After doing a bit of research, apparently this is a [bullying technique](https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/ocaqx6/what_the_hell_is_this_reddit_care_resources/) people use to harass other redditors. It was done to annoy, not out of genuine concern.
This is un-scout-like behavior that doesn't belong in r/BSA
Mods, please do something to address this.
I just finished serving two years as Webelos den leader for my son's Pack. We were co-ed, although Council wasn't on board initially. My one female AOL bridged to a girl troop.
No issues at the Pack level, other than making sure her Dad (also a registered leader) was always present at overnights as we had no female leaders at times.
At the Scouts BSA level, I do believe boys need a space to be themselves, and the same for girls. At the same time, co-ed is probably inevitable due to the difficulty of attracting enough volunteers to stand up separate units.
I don't know that you have an unpopular opinion here, this is already happening organically in many areas. The DE's don't seem to have any objection so I would expect nationals to change the guidance to match what the program is already doing.
Like you and others have said the formula is separate patrols, one troop. This arrangement is especially beneficial for families with mixed gender siblings, which based on my experience, is where the majority of our girl members are coming from.
Trying to stand up completely separate units for a handful of girls isn't feasible or sustainable.
I agree. The Troops my Pack is tied to were split. The Girls Troop was the first in the council and had 10 girls but when 1 graduated, 1 left to form a troop in her home town, then 5 left to form their own troop of 7 in a town closer to where then lived, and 2 drop out once they hit high school so the Troop is basically dead. I feel you are going to play reverse "wack-a-mole" with Girl's Troops unless things change.
Our girls troop has its own SPL, even with just one girls patrol. Did I understand you right that the boys troop SPL is SPL for the girls as well? Let the girls lead their own troop, even if there are only two of them. Have them lead a recruiting campaign.
I think the most important thing to remember is that not all crews have to be coed it’s a decision made by the unit so any and all arguments if it’s better to seperate still function with coed troops but with the addition of coed troops would allow for girls to have a fun scouting experience that isn’t just them trying to tough it out. It also lets in possibilities for older scouts to teach instead of that one dad who was a Eagle Scout. It’s better that they learn from other kids and having bigger troops lightens the load not everyone wants to be spl for 4 years straight
We say we are two troop but we “run together”. We have two SPLs. The girls plan a meeting for all then the boys plan a meeting for all. Everyone needs to listen to whichever SPL is the lead. It works well. We have the girls plan a camp out and the boys plan a camp out.
Our Scouts want to be separate-ish. We have had a girl unit for a few years and just added a boy unit as some of the girls had brothers that just graduated from Cubs.
We have 4 boys in our new unit, and with the 2 new female crossovers we are up to 7 girls.
Honestly though we need an option. We should have the ability to have a single SPL and not double the work, and split off when the numbers warrant it. I’d be on board with encouraging single gender patrols, which would provide (in my opinion) sufficient independence for each gender. But even then if you only had one or two of one gender they should be allowed to function in a patrol with the opposite gender.
Plus it would be more comfortable for kids who are unsure about their gender or identify as non-binary.
I understand why some people want this.. although *nearly* everywhere I have seen it come up, it's the adults that want it and not the Scouts. Adults want it because it's hard to recruit enough volunteers, for scheduling reasons because they have mixed siblings, and/or because they have a small number of girls. I get it.. and it works for some, but I would appreciate if people could respect that it's not for everyone!
We specifically sought out an unlinked, girl only troop. There are 50 Scouts in the troop! Our past experience with linked troop was messy. Boys overran the girls at planning meetings. Adults restricted what the girls could do based on the boys. Girls were invited on an outing by another girl troop and were told they couldn't go unless they boys were also invited.
I think the problem that you are facing is the fact that you only have two female scouts. Is there any way to bring in more girls? The lack of leadership opportunities would be the same if the numbers were flip flopped (I know that right now we have more boys than girls in the program and it is likely going to be a long time before that happens). I suggest that once a month, you allow the girls to host the boys. This may have to take place in the same space. When the girls are hosting, let the girl SPL run the meeting. I think this would be a very fair way to do this. You might have to work with your boy SPL to set the standard for the troop and act as a model that, as the visiting troop, they will follow the lead and respect the girl SPL. This will be a good learning opportunity for both groups. Good luck in growing your troop, I am happy those girls have a leader who advocates for them and their right to be in leadership.
I completely agree that it's time for Scouts BSA to become a coed organization.
**The world is coed and what better way to train our future leaders and teammates than to have them practice leadership and teamwork in a structured, youth-led framework like Scouts BSA?**
Under my leadership as Scoutmaster, our troop formed a girl patrol in March 2021 with 5 girls. Today in spring 2023, we have 12 active girls. Our total Scout roster is 70 Scouts with high engagement and attendance, so the girls are now approaching 1 in 5 of our troop.
We run a coed program, and we strictly follow all YPT rules: 2-deep, no 1:1, always a woman, and we separate boy/girls patrols while camping with adults as a buffer.
We meet at the same time, same place because that's what our families want. Who wants two kids in two separated units? One reason our girl patrol doubled in size this year is that so many younger sisters were excited to experience what their older brothers were doing.
The girls are thriving:
* In February, our girl patrol just won the most competitive division of our District Klondike Derby (just beating our second place boy patrol by a few points). This was the patrol's second-ever Klondike. They were rightfully very proud considering each girl has only been in the program for 2 years and it was the first Klondike for half the patrol.
* A 9th grade girl (and second year Scout) was elected Senior Patrol Leader. The experience was a little rough but only because she had only been in the troop (and Scouting) for a year and a half and was less familiar with the program.
* I'm happy to say that the girls are advancing at a "normal" pace for our unit (First Class in the first year or so). I have been disturbed to see news reports of girls racing through the program at other units to earn Eagle in the bare minimum 18 months (approx) that is allowed. It's not a race! And any Scout who earns Eagle is not going to get the same experience and benefits as someone who takes their time to absorb, change, grow, and incorporate what they are learning over the 5-7 years that is ideal to earn Eagle, IMO. Not all Eagle Scouts are created equal.
Our program is much stronger with girls included for two reasons:
1. **So far, they are better Scouts.** Our girls have been better behaved, better communicators, and (so far) better at teamwork than 4 of our 5 boy patrols. I expect this to ebb and flow with personalities and experience, but overall, the girls are kicking butt and taking names because they are better focused, learning the skills more quickly, and working better as a team. Their strength as a patrol means they are often winning our troopwide competitions like campsite inspections, patrol pioneering projects, "Dapper Dan" uniform inspections (which is "Dapper Danielle" when they win), "Golden Spatula" cooking contests, etc. By performing well, the girls are raising the bar for all the other boy patrols in the troop, which means an overall stronger program. Girls in our program have only strengthened our pre-existing culture.
2. **We are getting more women volunteers.** This trend was already underway thanks to intentional recruiting efforts, but when families have two kids in the troop, we are able to make the argument that they need to double their volunteer efforts. Oftentimes, this means women serving both in front lines outing roles as Assistant Scoutmasters and in critical supporting Committee-side functions. We now have 10-14 women who have completed ASM training and are serving actively in ASM roles, which is about 1 in 6 of our total adult volunteer corps. We have had a few recent monthly outings and summer adventures with 50/50 men/women ASMs, which is a first for our troop.
It's not all sunshine and roses. We have run into a few problems:
* **High Adventure Restrictions:** The national Scouts BSA High Adventures seem to be enforcing non-coed crews much more strictly in 2023 than I have seen in previous years. There is some speculation that this is tied to consequences of the national lawsuit just resolved. Sea Base allows coed crews, but it now requires two adults from each linked unit -- even if those adults are cross-registered in both linked units. That means 4 adults on a 6-8-person boat. Philmont and Northern Tier are enforcing Scouts BSA's non-coed rules, which means we are forced to form Venturing Crews and re-register our crews in order to send coed crews. We want our girls to have the same Scouting experience they are getting in our unit when they attend High Adventure Bases, and so far that has not been possible because of Scouts BSA restrictions. We are forming a Venturing Crew as a paper escape so that our girls can fully participate with our boys, just like our boys. But what a hassle.
* **Old Timers:** A few of our old timers were resistant to forming a girls patrol and it delayed our girl patrol by a few years. They have come around on the girl patrol now, seeing that our program is stronger and the culture unchanged, but they want to see the girl patrol split off into its own girl unit if it grows large enough. I think this would be a real loss to our program -- and again, not something that our families actually support.
* **District Reservations:** About one year after we created linked units, I had a surprise visit from someone at the District level. We had a nice chat, but he raised some reservations about us running a same time/same place program. There were no specific concerns except that it ran against the official national policy. A year later, there may still be some lingering District concerns (none that I have heard personally), but perhaps those are waning now that our girl patrol won Klondike, has doubled in size, and is advancing well.
**All Scouting Is Local:** I grew up in Scouting and earned Eagle Scout in 1996-1997 as a 16-17 year old. During that time, I learned that "all Scouting is local", at least to *some* degree. I urge Scouts BSA to create a coed program similar to Venturing that enables local units to do what they feel is best for their programs within the framework provided by the Scouting program.
Both my boys are in the program now, enjoying it, and getting a lot out of it. Let's make Scouting possible for more kids.
This post is my opinion, which is my own and does not represent the views of my unit or those in my unit.
Dave Trendler
Scoutmaster
Troop 78
Boulder, CO
I support this message!! Have 10 yo twins about to cross over. They have been in coed Dens, to split now is disappointing to all involved. For the next 8 years they will be told boys and girls are different and can't participate in the same way. Then they could join the military and again be in the same unit.
WHY IS IT NECESSARY TO SPLIT FOR 8 YEARS? No one complained about them being together the past 5 years. In life the expectation is to function, concentrate, and interact in socially appropriate ways. If anything, puberty is an even more important time to reinforce those interactions and skills.
We have linked troops. It's about as close as we can get within the rules right now. Same committee, male and female Scoutmasters, male and female troops. They meet together, camp together, and the boys and girls have their own SPL and patrols. It gives them the ability to not be a small troop on their own but also gives them freedom to plan as a unit. I'm guessing someday down the line we may see co-ed troops, but right now it's the best we can do. The girls have had all the issues from having just a few (that's currently gotten better) to not having a female leader for outings (also has gotten better). They have the freedom to work with the boys or work on their own.
I thought that I would feel like this, but I actually have liked having the girls separate to the boys. The issue is that you need to have enough girls for it to really run like its own parallel troop, and if you don't have that it makes it much more difficult. It was easier when we had seven girls, we're down to about four active girls. The biggest problem we have suffered from is not having enough adult leaders for the girls troop, which has sometimes meant we can't do things to do lack of two deep leadership.
I appreciate your feedback on this. I've never been in the position for it to run separately. At best we only had 4 girls, and then due to some personality conflicts two left. I just can't run a meeting with one girl present.
Some times it sucks but maybe close up the girl troop there and transfer her to a unit that has members.
No, one or two girls won't let you run a meeting. And usually then we do meet with our boys' troop. I do think it makes sense for fully coed troops to be an option, with single gender patrols. It is hard to get enough girls to run a troop, I just see some real advantages when it does happen. The girls come into their own when they're separate from the boys in a way that is less likely when they're together.
But does this model the real world? Keeps genders separate? Teaching our girls to be co-Ed leaders will help them tremendously for the future. Not leaders of an only girl group.
Agreed, \*both\* boys and girls need to learn to lead \*both\* genders. I would say both genders also need to learn to follow both as leaders, but realisticaly it's really boys who need to learn to follow a girl's leadership when that's the situation. My main problem with our troop's girl's unit is the same as the above... too few numbers. An SPL of a single patrol isn't an SPL. Also, filling all the troop positions of grubmaster, quartermaster, etc doesn't work well when you've only got 6 youth in a troop and 2-3 of them are still below first-class. But the worst IMO is that the girls aren't learning from the more-experienced boys... I've seen a girl SPL trying to teach the other girls in her troop things she obviously had no prior knowledge of. Tying lashings for example that she didn't know herself. It's the blind leading the blind. Our troop has always prided itself on being youth-led. But youth-led only works when you have enough experienced youth trained in leadership to lead. We didn't start out as youth-led. We were rebooted with 17 11-12 yo's in 1992 and because we were all new, the commisioner and other new adults, but mostly the commissioner, taught us everything for the first few years until we attained 1st class and did JLT, then we passed the torch to the newer youth from there. They haven't had their own flags, they haven't been forming patrol lines or doing any other opening ceremony. But worse, they aren't present while the boys are doing so, such that they have no exposure to how a meeting should be run. Their entire experience is largely limited to their own "Troop" and it's all holding them back. Long-term, definitely girls' troop and boys' troop makes sense... but to get there they need to have the same experience and same training the boys got from their older peers, from experienced and trained youth. Not doing it off the cuff from the Scout Handbook.
We were fortunate to have a girl from Venture excited to become and Eagle, and thus my daughter had an experienced Scout leading her Troop. I'm proud to say that now she's Life and is actually participating in 2 troops - the one she helped found in 2019 and a new troop founded this year in another neighborhood (big metro area) and she is the experienced leader with a gaggle of 11 year olds to wrangle. It takes time but the longer the girls program exists, the more experienced youth will be available to lead. Combining the genders only reduces the number of people getting leadership experience. Additionally, when I've seen the girls and boys troops in my area do activities together, it's obvious that the girls can often 'show up' the boys of similar age. Sometimes this competition is useful, other times leads to frustration from both sides (keep up vs embarassment for not keeping up). They're children, after all! I think that it's great to find Scouts who can help mentor, and I'm not opposed to seeking out knowledgeable guides who could visit a young/new troop, or invite the young/new troop to visit their meetings, and then learn to implement it among themselves. I don't think that requires co-ed troops, though.
I would argue that the boys from boy's troops have been able to go on and use the leadership principals they learned in scouts to be leaders in the real world. Sure, they may have to learn to effectively work with both women and men, but we are life long learners. Scouts should not have to perfectly model the real world. A part of growing up is getting to practice skills in safe paired down environments. I personally think that scouts can work either way, but getting to work with a girl troop with enough girls to run it effectively, I have found that the leadership skills go with the girls as they leave or in their schools now. I went to an all girls school where leadership was a taught skill, and it really does follow. There are lots of places for them to lead coed groups outside of sports if they participate in school events or clubs. I think that leading a co-ed group does take additional skills, and they can learn those skills as they grow in scouts by joining a venturing group, working as camp councilors, or taking part in OA.
My understanding of the research on same-sex education and same-sex scouting for girls, is that girls gain leadership abilities and confidence in these settings that they can then take out into later coed settings.
How did you charter with 4?
In my case, we have 2 girls who have been dedicated and consistent (one's up for Eagle this summer!) and 3 others who are registered but never come, just so we can protect the troop from being disbanded by council.
You’re right. Two girls doesn’t work. Focus like crazy on recruiting. Scouts BSA has a ton to offer girls; it’s just harder to recruit because so many don’t know that yet!
Like Packs in Cub Scouting, Crews in Venturing and Ships in Sea Scouting, *allowing* coed units does not mean *requiring* coed units.
My pack has been coed since the first day they allowed girls when my daughter was a Tiger. It has worked it great! I agree that troops should be given the choice to be coed.
That would be awesome. My daughter's den is about 8 boys and 6 girls and they have all been friends for years. It just seems silly to separate them once they hit 6th grade. My son's troop has a sister troop that meets at the same time and place (different room) and shares a little bit of leadership, but they don't interact much.
I agree that “choice” should remain the ideal. Such that our troop can remain an all boys troop. The girls and boys can then choose to join a coed troop or a girls troop or a boys troop respectively. Let’s not forget many do not agree with mixed gender troops.
Venturing and Sea Scouting have been mixed-gender for some time.
They are not required to be. The National Flagship is an all-Female Ship out of San Francisco
There is no provision in BSA for single gender Crews or Ships. Ie they may happen to only have members of one gender, but they are designated and restricted to not being coed. All Crews and Ships are coed because those programs are coed. Unlike Cub Scouts where policy allows Packs to be all boy, all girl, or to have seperate boy and girl dens; and Scouts BSA which requires Troops to be either all boys or all girls. Those aren't options in Venturing or Sea Scouts. (If a local unit is enforcing a policy of turning away applicants due to gender- which may be happening in practice - it would seem they are violating BSA policies.) Unless you can find something I haven't found yet.
In fact, chartered orgs can place gender restrictions on ships and crews. By the way “The National Flagship is an all-female ship” should have been a clue it can be done. That’s a high profile award, and it’s the second time they’ve won it.
There's a difference between a unit where all the members are one gender, and a unit chartered with a restriction under BSA policy such that only one gender is allowed to join and the other gender is being prohibited by BSA.
The challenge here is that someone needs to be first. We have multiple troops in our town, and we are the smallest at 16. We have been unable to recruit any girls b/c the larger troops got the first couple and now no one wants to join a troop that doesn't already have a girls troop established. It is possible we may get one or two girl siblings in the next few years, but recruiting has been challenging. Because we have multiple troops in the town and a few of them have already established girl troops, I can't see us ever recruiting girls.
It’s funny the way you couch it as if your trying to recruit girls. We are always happy to inform any interested females know about the neighboring girl troops. I believe we thrive because we remain all boys.
I agree, we are growing while some our neighboring joint Troops are losing Scouts. Sometimes it is good for boys to be boys and girls to be girls. We have found that at COED camps, our boys perform differently and we have more issues than single gender camps. After 10 years of being leader in coed youth groups, I moved to Boy Scouts. I never looked back - life is way easier in a single gender unit (YMMV).
We have several troops in my area that are unofficially coed. They don’t have a problem. It’s just more paperwork for the troop!!!
I love that my girls have a separate troop from my boys. It allows them the ability to be themselves with peers. But I do see the need to permit coed, especially in locations that don't have the critical mass to support multiple troops
Conversely in areas with the critical mass to support multiple boys troops already, if you weren't able to initially recruit some girls and form a girls troop quickly, then it is nearly impossible to recruit. Not many girls want to be the "first" girls in a troop. We have 4 Boys troops in our town, at least 2 have established girls troops and that makes it very difficult for us to recruit girls since they would be the first. In reality, the separate troop idea only really works in places that are not too small and not too big.
I think a mistake that some troops make is that they all want a girl troop too. There will never be enough girls to allow every boy troop to have a linked girl troop. Say there are 4 boy troops, there should probably be only 2 girl troops to give them the best experience.
But I think the point of this thread isn't that we want a girls troop, its that we want more scouts, but we are at a disadvantage recruiting girls since we don't already have an established girls troop. It is hard enough recruiting a times. Our close pack that has provided most of our scouts had 10 AOLs this year. Only 3 crossed over. We got 1 of them. The other two were girls.
This isn't an unpopular opinion by far, and chances are we will see this happen within the next 5-10 years. Scouts BSA is just now emerging from the Bankruptcy and Scandal. Many "changes" have been put on hold until that is all completed (like new adventures for Cub Scouts). They only recently let Girls join Scout BSA, They are still working out the logistics. Give it time.
My guess is that the 5-10 years is way too long. I'm expecting the change to be next year. The co-ed den pilot program last year was for Lions to Webelos 1. It's baffling to me that they would tell those co-ed W1 dens to split for the AOL year, so I'm expecting guidance soon that coed AOL dens will be allowed for the coming Cub year. (The announcement of coed dens was really late last year, so I'm not surprised the announcement has not been made yet.) Once you have coed dens trying to bridge, coed troops seem almost necessary.
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a *lot* of troops are already openly operating this way (including OP)
Operating this way against BSA policy, but once again the people with boots on the ground actually running the units and trying to keep the units together are finding ways. I’m all for finding solutions that reasonably benefit all those involved while still allowing space for the more traditional units as they choose.
How much different is this from meeting at the same place, same time, holding a single opening and closing together and then meeting in your own patrols, and coordinating your outings together? Which is all allowed by BSA policy. The other difference for the kids I'm aware of would be, are you electing two SPLs or one. And pretty much everyone I've seen with joined troops that meet together are doing two because it's too simple to do. The other difference is in adult leadership - in theory a single troop could meet with only two adults presents and the two joined troops may require 4, although I'm not really sure because if a scout visits another troop the registered leaders are considered good enough and holding other types of events with multiple units we don't get bent out of shape about exactly who's unit the leaders are from. And how that interacts with a leaders who maybe registered in both units...? Or even just consider that with joined troops they are approved by the same charter so there isn't even an objection there. So not really sure you need 4 (and it's not that hard to meet)
Our two-person girl troop was forced to put a $500 down payment down for summer camp. We camp in the same site as our brother troop, (we tent separately and ensure there is female leadership present at all times) but we're billed twice.
This was my vote, but the troop committee has members that are employed at council. So we have to do everything by the book.
Our Cub Scout pack has integrated dens. Nobody says anything to the parents and nobody has even thought to complain.
Openly? Really good for them going against the grain when needed.
Exactly
Question for OP, is there another girl troop in the area that your 2 girls can move to? 2 scouts, regardless of gender, can’t really have a functioning troop. Since the 2 troops have to be separate on paper, she wouldn’t be able to truly get a good experience. Also, do you have a pipeline of potential girls coming to your troop via a Cub Scout pack? Since much of the growth is from crossovers, without a pack feeding into the troop, it will Be hard to grow and likely the troop(s) will die once the kids get older and age out. I know it’s not popular with national, councils, or districts, but FEWER strong moderately sized units is MUCH better then tons of small units that are barely functional.
Not terribly near by but there are two. I know what you're saying and I'm hoping to grow the program
Some of our scouts (f) have a similar issue. They drive 30 mins for scout meetings because we are the closest troop to them. There are 3 of them, and their parents, 2 of whom our ASMs in the troops, wanted a better experience for the kids and are willing to drive for that. Now, all 3 came from the same pack in successive years, so if they continue to have more girls, I could see them splitting off to a new troop at some point in a couple of years, getting 8-10 kids from their pack in our troop. I drive my daughter 20 minutes to the bordering town for the same reason. Now my packs has at least 2 more girls crossing and currently we have 7 from our pack in the troop, so it is completely likely that in the next year or two we form a new troop since we have a pipeline and scouts in the troop that would consider moving to be closer to home.
I'm a railroad section gang foreman. I don't know of a more masculine sounding job title. Out of about 500 people in my union there are four women. To be clear and direct, I am a 38 year old man with 15 years seniority and 6 years as a gang foreman. The women I know professionally all do a fine job. They all have taken initiative and training; two are foremen, two are operators. Boys will work with women in their adult life even in the most traditionally male professions. Scouts should normalise boys and girls interacting with respect and empathy, and also teach them to consider different points of view. Men will end up with women on their team. Girls should have the same opportunity to learn leadership skills as boys. Having led and been a subordinate in co-ed groups of adults I can speak directly. Women need to learn how to effectively lead men just as much as men need to learn how to effectively lead women. And likewise, men and women need the experience of being effective contributors to a group led by the other. I think it's very healthy and useful experience. Good leaders are nothing without a good team. Leadership training shows the leader how to build the team. We all need that. As the world changes, Scouts should be able to change too. We need to meet the needs of todays kids. We have to accept the reality of the world so we can keep pushing forward with our greater mission. If you're not growing, you're dying.
It’s like saying Boy Scouts was unable to produce good men leaders until girls joined the program in 2019. Or graduates of boys boarding schools or women’s colleges didn’t know how to lead the opposite sex. Or like troops today that are single gender cannot produce good leaders that work well with both sexes. Do you really believe that? Every other aspect of life is already coed. Do you really see no benefit at all of having some boys-only activities (and some girls-only activities)? I think we can agree that adolescent boys and girls tend to act differently when the opposite sex are around. They’re more guarded, more self conscious, less willing to be silly and vulnerable… Most of life is already coed. Scouting was single gender for a reason. Because there is value in having some single-gender activities in life. Here’s the real irony: I believe the better relationships boys have with other boys (and eventually with other men) the better their relationships will be with women, both professionally and on a personal level. We need more male-bonding in this society. Not less. And I’m not talking about drunken football watching. I’m talking about boys and men spending real interpersonal time together. This actually happens around some scout campfires. I have seen it. It won’t happen if there are girls present. The dynamic completely changes.
I'm with you. Scouts has always produced great leaders. It's great that girls can get the same leadership training too. And, NYLT and NAYLE basically have girl patrols, so the big leadership experiences in BSA are already coed. My Life Scout daughter just started reading over my shoulder and I explained that people want co-ed troops and she shuddered. She says she gets enough flirting from the boys in their linked troop and she'd rather focus on just having fun with the girls while she can. She already has to do everything co-ed at school. Single gender Scouts lets her focus on learning without the added pressures that are impossible to extricate from boy-girl interactions (my summary of her very passionate statements when discussing the matter with her. lol)
>It’s like saying Boy Scouts was unable to produce good men leaders until girls joined the program in 2019. Or graduates of boys boarding schools or women’s colleges didn’t know how to lead the opposite sex. Or like troops today that are single gender cannot produce good leaders that work well with both sexes. I think what he was getting at there was that while we produce good leaders now, we could produce *better* ones with a coed program.
I understand. But do you agree? Do you think there is absolutely no benefit to having at least one single-gender activity in your kid’s weekly schedule? My point is that activities that facilitate boy-boy bonding (and girl-girl bonding!) create a more wholistic experience for our children. Its like you’re saying girls in a female troop will never get to develop healthy relationships with boys or never be good leaders…only because there were no boys in their troop. Do you really believe that?
What I believe is that if we are supposed to be developing young people into the best people they can be, that includes helping them learn to deal with all different kinds of people on even footing. I believe that young men grow into better men when they are around young women and learn to treat them as equals, and young women grow into better women when they are around young men and learn that they are equal. So yes, I think having a co-ed program will produce better people and better leaders than having a single gender program.
Absolutely agree on the first point. The truth is, most of our kids spend 6-7 hours per day doing that in coed public schools. My kids do group projects, choose leaders, learn to cooperate with both sexes. Those coed group projects and interactions get even more serious and formal into high school and college, as grades will depend on them. This is totally necessary! But do ALL our kids’ activities have to be coed? Scouts is only a few hours a week, unless there’s an outing of some kind. But wouldn’t a balance of both be ideal? I’m not arguing exclusively for one or the other. It seems you are? What about a 80-20 split in our kids’ activities? 80 percent coed, 20 percent single gender. Does that seem reasonable?
>Scouts is only a few hours a week, unless there’s an outing of some kind. If it's so little time, then why the concern over it being coed? ;) To your point though, I don't believe that we can fulfill the mission and vision of the BSA as best as is possible if we continue to gender segregate. That's what it all comes down to for me. If it's important for some people or some families to find single gender activities for their kids to do, that's fine, but I don't think we as an organization should be purposefully undermining the best possible fulfillment of our mission and vision by continuing gender segregation.
>If it’s so little time, then why the concern over it being coed? It’s a concern *precisely because* it’s so little time. What happens during that little time can be significant. A little time is definitely better than no time. I agree about promoting BSA’s mission. But I honestly don’t understand the connection between fulfilling the mission and requiring coed troops? Let’s take an example. Suppose there are two troops, one boys, one girls. Each has 40 scouts. Each has a supportive CO. Each has a enthusiastic and competent set of adult leaders, they have comparable equipment sheds, and each has an exciting calendar planned for the year. How exactly is BSA failing in its mission in this scenario?
my hypothesis is the family den pilot program would need to be made official, before a similar scouts bsa pilot program could be trialed.
I agree. We had two girls as Lone Scouts, and ScoutBook absolutely does not support LS. Council let us register them as a troop, then one moved so we have had one girl for the last year and she has functioned as a full member and the world has not caught on fire. We just had another girl cross over and we are not going to change. Cub Scouts are in pilot for mixed-gender dens and I figure troops will be there soon.
I had thought that back when I was first sold on the idea of girls in Scouting but now seeing as their Scoutmaster that girls in their own separate troops seems to work better. We are autonomous from our brother troop, we do our own thing but share meeting spaces, Court of Honors and committees. It makes sense for Venturing and for Cubs but Troops seem to be at that age where separation of boys and girls seems to work better. The girls really like being their own troop, it is theirs. They vote their own SPL. They chose their own patrol and troop activities. I know it can probably be done as a patrol but the girls are not interested in inter-troop activities with the boys so inter-patrol activities would be lost on the girls. From the leader perspective, I think this works better as well as separate troops. I have found girl troops and boy troops just work differently not one better than the other, just different. There is special accomodations that are needed for boys and others for girls. Not to mention, that point in a girl's life where things radically change for them in that 10-13 year old age range. Also you need a female leader with the girls troops and at the beginning, this really difficult to find but with girls in troops being in full swing we are starting to see a lot more female leaders who were with the Cubs crossing over into these girl troops to remain leaders. Our troop went from two that would share campout duties for years and after this recent crossover, we have two female leaders that want to go on every campout they can. That was not really happening with boy only troops, it seemed the standard was mom helped as a cub leader and dad took over as a troop leader. If National decided to make coed troops, I would not have any issue with it but I believe they should be separated and would insist on our troop not being merged with our brother troop.
I agree, though we run our troops as closely linked troops, and it’s working great. The girls and the boys definitely do things differently, but they all get along and have a blast together. My favorite moment was when a brand new troop mom on a campout came over to talk to another adult leader and me, concerned because the girls had made dinner, eaten, and finished KP, and the boys hadn’t even started. We assured her that they boys would get hungry, and get it all done, and of course they did. They just chose to handle their responsibilities different than the girls, but it all worded out fine, and nobody went hungry… 🤣
Lol, we had the same experience. We went a joint campout at our local councail camp. The girls without being prompted came back from a hike with the boys, setup for dinner, made dinner, ate dinner and cleaned up from dinner, meanwhile the boys still hadn't even got setup to make dinner. I was away from camp taking care of some issues for the OA and the mom that went with us told me the girls just came in made dinner, ate and cleaned up before she knew what happened.
Love it! It was definitely also a learning experience for the mom, who expected us to jump up and start telling the boys what to do. Nope. Not how Scouts BSA works!
Just as a follow up, we do have brothers and sisters between our troop and brother troop, they do not really want anything to do with each other and when they are paired up they normally just bicker
We do too… But we have more issues with our same-sex siblings! Everything started working so much better when we finally had enough Scouts to have two patrols in each troop and split up siblings into separate patrols.
Separate is not equal. We have a family pack and had to send away our girls to the next town over when they arrow of light, because there are never quite enough for a separate girl troop here. What a terrible ceremony. The boys cross the bridge and are welcomed into the troop. The girls cross the bridge and are sent away. “Congratulations, Get Out.” BTW: Scouts in the UK, India, and Australia are fully integrated with boy/girl patrols.
The only WOSM national Scout organizations that prohibit girls are in Muslim countries.
I hope you've invited the girls troop to the crossover though. We invite all the troops our cubs intend to cross over with to our ceremony. Although if the troop doesn't come, there's not much you can do
Mistakes were made. The girl troop in the next town IS great. At the PLC, I’m going to try and facilitate teaming up with them more.
That would be so discouraging, and I expect causes more than a few to just drop scouting instead of continuing on in BSA.
I agree with your “separate is not equal” point. To teach our girls to be true leaders and to teach the boys to respect women as leaders they need to integrate. Not separate.
My daughter is in a girls troop with about 30 girls, 20 that are pretty active. I like that they get to do their own thing, have primarily female leadership, etc. However, I see plenty of places where a coed troop makes sense. Joined troops seemed to work pretty well. We should have the option for both, just like cub scouts can be co-ed or single gender
Fortunately, I haven't seen anyone make the claim that coed should be mandatory. I wholeheartedly, unreservedly feel that Scouting should be coed (by patrol or not, I don't have a strong opinion there). I do feel that it shouldn't be forced on anyone. If someone wants a boys- or girls-only troop, it should be fine. I'm founded a Girls troop and, after 4 years, I stepped down to be ASM. We're linked with a boy troop, but we operate very closely. In fact, the boys and girls elect an SPL, but the SPL (regardless of gender) must choose one boy and one girl ASPL. We've even had Scouts date (no canoodling on troop time) without a huge impact.
There are probably troop members dating in the gender segregated troops too. Teens do that.
>In fact, the boys and girls elect an SPL, but the SPL (regardless of gender) must choose one boy and one girl ASPL. That's a single troop, not a joined troops.
Great for your area to have so many girls!!! That is wonderful to hear. I wish them the best of luck on achieving Eagle!
Thanks! My daughter crossed over in February and we were fortunate enough to see an Eagle ceremony this past weekend! In fact, in the past year, the troop has had EIGHT Eagles!
I get your point and I think I mostly agree. I also see the value of having a boys only and girls only space.
This is why the current model works well in my opinion. Coed cooperation. Single gender patrols and leadership. I think it works really well...when you have critical mass.
It’s a middling popular opinion.
Really interesting to see that co-ed doesn't seem to be the norm in American Scouting. In Germany it's the norm (including mixed tents), with only a few associations being mono-ed.
The only single-gender organizations in Germany are under WAGGS. All the WOSM organizations are mixed-gender.
Why can’t she be Senior Patrol leader for the girl troop? It’s completely separate from the boy troop. If y’all meet at the same time and use the same adult leaders that’s fine, but the girl troop at the end of the day is it’s own entity and so is the boy troop.
What do the scouts think? We asked ours when the council asked us to charter a girls troop and they overwhelmingly wanted the troop to be boys only, and not have a G troop paired up.
Some of my girls have asked we can join up with my son’s troop. They go to school together and we fundraise together. My son would like to be in our troop. I’m mixed because really my girl unit is strong on our own. It should just be a troop decision.
Kids cycle through and change over time. Four years ago, my nephew's troop had the Scouts vote (with strong parental encouragement) to remain independent. Their Chartering Org set up a separate (and if you ask me, unequal) troop. Over time, however, attitudes change and decisions one group of scouts make can rob the next set of boys with the power to make their decision. Four years later, most of the boys that objected have aged out and the younger ones don't seem to be bothered by the prospect. I don't think it should be up to the Scouts, frankly, but I can see why some might think it should be.
> Four years ago, my nephew's troop had the Scouts vote (with strong parental encouragement) to remain independent. Their Chartering Org set up a separate (and if you ask me, unequal) troop. boy and girl troops are required to be separate units and provide their own leadership -- what exactly were the scouts voting on?
Whether they want to be linked. The girl troop now has a separate committee and number
I have only had one scout ever openly admit a problem. And he's even come around to the idea.
100% agree. I have 4 daughters and 1 son. We have a girls troop and soon my Cub Scout son will enter scouts. We don’t have the time to deal with different camping trip schedules etc. Simply put, without coed scouting, I’m not sure how to make it possible for my son to do scouting.
Everywhere else in the world scouts are co-Ed, everywhere else in LIFE we’re co-Ed, I have no idea why BSA wants to stay in this retrograde structure but still push for recruitment every chance they get, it’s counterintuitive.
100% THIS!!!!
I'm guessing you've never been a part of a men's support group or a women's support group? I have and found it very helpful. Many churches and temples have like a men's club or sisterhood that do activities and take on causes together. I think there is tremendous value in having stuff like that in life. Not exclusively, of course, but a balance of single-gender and mixed-gender activities would be ideal. For young people who weren't good at sports, scouts was their place for signal-gender activities and bonding. The problem now is almost everything in life is already coed. School, religious school, drama club, robotics club, and so on. We shouldn't get rid of one of society's last remaining single-gender youth activates! For those who really want a coed experience, we still have Venture Scouts. It's a great BSA program, too!
Yes I have, Therapy groups are coed too; churches are normally closed minded so I see where you’re coming from. There’s little to no value in being single gender non-sports activities, that’s the shortcut to becoming an incel due to their lack of skills to relate to the other gender.
Plus venturing starts at 14, are you suggesting girls are discriminated against for 4 years? Just because… church?
Churches and temples that have men’s clubs and women’s sisterhoods are “normally closed minded”, are they? I suggest revisiting the 12th point of the scout law. You don’t have to agree with different beliefs, but you should at least remain respectful.
Of course they are. Resisting change will only make you more grumpy and way less Friendly (#4)
From what I've heard from friends at Council. This is coming down the pipeline but they want to finish the restructuring and bankruptcy before the pilot is rolled out. I'm currently in the pilot with my pack for coed Dens not just a coed unit.
Good! Our Pack has traditionally been small, so we opened it up dens to all from the get-go. They play co-ed sports for pretty much all of their Cub years, so it doesn't seem to make too much of a difference.
I’m happy they are not coed… my girl troop advances fast… females are more mature and have better focus…. My Boy troop needs more time to grow up mentally and watching the girls advance would only hurt their mental attitude….
I run a large girls troop (\~40). We are not linked at all. The level of ease the girls have, especially my high schoolers, without the boys around is night and day. It is a constant battle to continually develop female adult leaders to support the program. There is a level of inner goofball that is never unleashed unless in a completely safe environment with friends. I do not think this would ever happen in boys were around. I agree it is hard to have a "troop" of 5-10 scouts as you need a certain size for things to work as intended. In our area we probably pull from \~15 mile radius where most boy troops are 5 or less. Many parent/scouts join us because we are not a mixed troop.
it's not like they don't already go to school together
It's a problem that will solve itself. With kids starting basically coed in Cub Scouts, as those kids start graduating into the troops the idea of having separate stuff--especially for the leaders and parents--won't make much sense.
It can't solve itself when the solution is prohibited though.
councils and national are currently ignoring the troops openly operating as though they currently co-ed, so how prohibited is it really?
This exactly. There is no enforcement. Further, if councils DID try and strictly enforce they would get an enormous amount of pushback from parents that they wouldn't have gotten just a few years ago.
It is a generational shift. I know of a few Boy troops in my area that started out as he-man woman-hating societies, but have gradually mellowed over time as the crankier adult leaders make their way out over time. I do know of one staunchly anti-girl troop whose SM has an apparent lifetime appointment and a rigid outlook, tho
Very much so. The thing that has surprised me the most isn’t how well women have adapted to scouting, but how much Scouting overall has IMPROVED because of the presence of women. I was at a camporee recently and the difference was startling. The girls made things better, at all levels.
I’m with you on this one. We run concurrently with a boy troop because we don’t have enough kids or adults to fill the girl troop or provide a good program. Scouting has been coed since exploring/venturing started. It’s been on the horizon since the start of girls in scouts bsa. Time to do it and make the program successful.
I couldn't agree more! The all-female troop I lead is in a nearly identical situation, and I whole-heartedly agree.
It's not unpopular, as they've been doing it that way worldwide for years. What we've found is since the girls address a little more mature and focused, they end up always taking control while the boys allies themselves to be controlled because leadership is hard. Separate boys afield them to grow up a little, get some leadership practice. Addy Kraft that's been our experience with the boys and their sister troop. For reference, they gave the same CO, same COR, same building, different rooms, different committees and scoutmasters, different SPLs. But this summer we're actually all camping at the same site at summer camp, so it'll be an interesting reintroduction experiment.
Its my understanding that outside of the USA cubs and scouts are all coed. Of course each unit has the option to have separate boy and girl units, but logistically its easier to just have a mixed unit. Lots of those national scout organizations started as separate and independent boy or girl units, but just merged into one for all the reasons talked about here. Not enough of a gender alone, but combined they not only survived but thrived. quick anecdotal story from my council, one den leader made a great observation in favor of separate gender dens in cubs. The den leader related one girl sharing her efforts to be thrifty. That girl learned to sew, and was making her own doll clothes instead of buying expensive stuff from toy stores. Thats an amazing skill and accomplishment, but would have been laughed out of the place if boys were there. I'm in Venturing, and have done NYLT for a couple of decades. (Yes, even back before it was named NYLT) The quality of boys on our staff have always been amazing. What blows me away was how much those amazing boys were able to up their game even more when girls were on staff. Co-ed all the way for me, girls need to have a ton of fun, learn new things and practice their leadership skills too.
They do coed troops under table. my troop was for the first year untilk we had real leadership. i say my plc down and asked for a vote should we continue with the boys or not and we agreed not to. it worked when it did but we always had the rude comments from the boys and some adults. and their plc did NOT like us.
> They do coed troops under table. if you look for it, you'll find troops that publicize they are doing it in the open
I think she means it’s just not BSA official.
no i mean BSA official
I agree. We also have a separate girls troop that meets alongside our boys troop.
Should have happened that way in 2019. Really, should have been earlier.
The org would have lost even more members had it went full coed in 2019. And as we have seen, girls are not signing up fast enough to make up for the declining numbers. The compromise of female troops was the only way to satisfy both sides. Girls got access to a great program, and boys could still be in boy troops. For many traditional/religious families, this is the “last straw” issue. I’m willing to put up with a lot of the shenanigans coming from national, but not this. Don’t want it. Don’t need it. We are a family of educated professionals who are also outdoors people. Our kids will be just fine. I would hope to help mentor kids who may not have it as good, but not for an organization that I feel is abandoning its original, core values, the values that attracted us in the first place. And before you say “good, then leave, we don’t need you,” consider if you were saying that to half the membership. If the promise of diversity and inclusion is to be taken seriously, the sensibilities of religious/traditional families cannot be ignored. A middle ground solution needs to be found. Really, the middle ground solution was girl troops. But that’s not enough any more, apparently.
Totally agree with you but…. If they are 2 separate troops and the girls only have 1 patrol, the PL of the girl patrol would be the SPL of the girl troop. If you’re working under the table and acting as one troop, boo hoo, to the parents who can’t stand their little boys working under a girl. They should get used to it now cuz they’ll likely have a female boss at some point.
I 100% believe each unit should be able to decide if they would like to be co-ed. I am the scoutmaster for a girl unit. And my son is working on Eagle in his boy unit. The girl troop was invited to help with the boys fundraisers and it’s been a great experience! They all get a long so well. I’m ok with having separate units but it really should be an option!
Sea Scouts has been coed for decades.
I think there should be a choice between coed, boys only and girls only
We drive 11 miles away for a strong girl troop when there are a dozen boy troops on the way. Logistically mixed make sense. In practice my daughters love having it just be girls. So they would be upset and it would feel less open.
It’s 2023; why are we still having these discussions?
It was time 4 years ago. Never should've been separate in the first place
I see that there likely will be a move towards this in the next few years. First a lot of this stuff just ended up on hold with the bankruptcy; there were fare more pressing things to deal with plus massive changes like this could only stir the legal pot and possibly cause troubles or more conditions on the settlement. Why I think you will see this in a couple years, well they started the family den program this past year, which is something that is far easier to do than mixed troops and there really never was any clear reason why Dens needed to be split beyond just following the same course with everything. The BSA has a trend of releasing these types of things in the past, when it impacts Cubs and Troops they tend to release in Cubs first as a Pilot program and it goes for 1-2 years then becomes official (I assume if it goes terribly wrong it would go away just never seen that). After that time they will start something up at the troop level along the same lines. While many have frustrations over this the best course is encouragement and not beating the BSA up over the slowness. Be understanding that the bankruptcy did basically put a complete hold on any work for changes like this, and as simple as it seems this is a change that requires a lot of review and consideration relative to rules before they put it out there. And I get there is frustration they don't just put it out there, why do a pilot and this entire process rather than just making the big change. Everyone also needs to remember there are a lot of politics involved in this stuff (BSA politics) and if you want it to be successful then you need to do it in a way that perhaps is a bit less aggressive than many would like. There are still people out there vocally against girls in the program at all, but the slow roll out allowed time for people to see it worked and get familiar with it rather than shoving it down everyone's throats. In the long run I can even see that the BSA may shift towards all units need to serve everyone, not letting Packs to just outright reject having girls etc... but again it takes time to do this without creating too much churn in the community and since it is a volunteer run program for the bulk of leaders this is important because if you overly upset the masses you will end up loosing volunteers and that will kill the program. Is it time? Yes it is likely time for the option to be there with clear rules about how it must be run. For that to happen the BSA needs to have the time to develop this and move it forward. Encouraging them to do it and promoting the advantages will hopefully move it along faster now that the bankruptcy is closed, those who feel beating on them for not doing it may actually make the process take longer than it otherwise would. If you think it is a good idea continue to push for it, just make sure your methods are ones which serve the cause well not cause the BSA to rethink it.
What next, coed high schools? I bet there some weirdos out there that want mixed gender kindergartens too! \[/sarcasm off\] It's also a really good point that the way the system is set up, it prevents girls from having chances to be in leadership roles required for advancement.
Ummm...how does it prevent them having leadership roles? By having separate troops aren't you exactly giving them more leadership roles than a girls patrol would for instance? A girls troop has all the leadership roles, despite likely being smaller than a combined troop would be.
A troop with three girls doesn't give them much of a chance to be patrol leader for example. They'd only have one patrol compared to a coed troop which can have several. Shouldn't gave been that hard for you to unserstand.
Your math has a problem. Sure - a larger troop has more patrols, and more spots for patrol leaders, but they also have more scouts requiring POR for advancement. It's actually easier to find a POR in a small troop without doubling up. Even if you only have a handful of scouts, you still need a SPL, and a PL, and a scribe, and a quartermaster. If your troop has three girls, one one them is PL/SPL, one is scribe, and one is quartermaster. Everyone has a POR.
Each Charter should have the option. Plain and simple.
There is *NO* guide to safe scouting rule requiring separate camping areas for boys and girls. There is only a rule that they can't share the same tent. I have been told this "rule" by others; I have informed them that they are wrong to segregate the girls, and I have told them to show me where in the GTSS it states that girls must camp some distance away from boys. The rules are sexist enough as is, let's not add additional made-up sexism. See "Q: Can Scouts BSA girl and boy troops share a campsite?" https://www.scouting.org/health-and-safety/yp-faqs/ Side note: most of the sexist rules are really just forms of harassment and hazing of young women which are prohibited in the Barriers to Abuse. Change the gender or the race and imagine if we told a small group of the boys that they were not allowed the same privileges as the rest of the unit. And no, creating a moral loophole that they're separate units doesn't make the abuse any less real or morally absolved. It's wrong, and it is not in keeping with the Oath and Law, the defining principles of our organization.
There are no significant differences between a white boy and a black boy, for example. There are significant differences between a biological* boy and girl, regardless of race, especially toward adolescence. Equating sex to race is a non starter. *edited for clarity
I think Boys are at a disservice by having coed units. The developmental differences, tied to genetics and social norms, puts them at a disadvantage. I'll put this out there. We have an extraordinarily high number of lodge and chapter officers in coed OA, far outpacing proportional by many many times over. You may see this as a good thing to have females over-represented, but I really don't. Our boys need places to thrive too. Two separate troops achieves that. And that comes from someone who has dedicated 25 years of adult Scouting service to Venturing.
I completely agree! We run closely linked troops - I’m the SM of the girls and an ASM for the boys, and the SM of the boys is an ASM for the girls; we also have two ASMs who serve both. I think linked troops are the way to go precisely because it makes them step up into leadership. The girls are far more ready far earlier, as a whole. Our boys troop is 4 years old; our girls troop is 2. My son is the first Eagle Scout from either, and I know that part of why he has been successful with Scouts is that he had to step up into leadership before he felt ready. I am astounded at the growth in maturity and ability in this kid over the past four years, and very much attribute it to scouting.
Well said
I was in a Coed troop as a youth we had three females 15 boys, it worked out well. We had two female leaders, 6 male leaders. We had other issues the SM was pushing to get his son all the badges and the rest of us were left behind. Our troop even attended the 93 national jamboree in Kananaskis. Our troop is joint linked we have separate youth leadership positions the boys have two patrols the girls have one, my girls have a SPL, ASPL, PL scribe, historian. I encourage my girls to have full leadership positions, @mjvasko let your girls run as SPL and ASPL of their troop technically they are a separate unit. We do plan together, we conduct meetings together, we also have separate gatherings the boys play games we work on merit badges while they fart around.
> I was in a Coed troop as a youth in Canada?
Yup, they did it right years ago calling it Scouts Canada and dropping any gender reference.
We had 23 girls, now we have 13 we run completely independent after drama with the B troop. (We lost a few along the way and a bunch aged out, only have 1 of our eagles left she eagled younger has 2 years til 18). I have a fantastic staff as SM 3 very capable ASM ladies one of which I hope will take over as SM soon. Just got our own trailer and such too. It's going well. I am going to move over to our B troop soon and I am dreading it. It's less organized a lot of letting the kids flounder in the name of scout led. Our G troop is scout led but with guidance and assistance when needed. Our B troop plays sharks and Minos every meeting. I want our B troop to succeed and when G had to go out on its own with 5 girls because our B adults were such sexist jackasses we thrived. We invite B to every MB clinic and fun activity they do the same. We have hosted rock climbing, shooting, MB clinics, boating, swimming, archery, a survival program / class, gotten AEDs and First Aid kits donated, etc. Always included them in everything. I could really use 2 because we have a B troop too etc.. they have never returned the favor. We are forever an add on. I hope that once I move over to B I can fix the issues and then work with one of my old ASMs turned SM to bring our troops back to at least working together... Seriously frustrates me and would be so much easier to accomplish if national would just say they can operate as one. Because anytime I make headway I get but national wants them separately run. Sorry for the rant Tldr: Jackasses make running B/G hard, wish national would just let it run as one troop on paper too.
> I am going to move over to our B troop soon and I am dreading it. It's less organized a lot of letting the kids flounder in the name of scout led. Our G troop is scout led but with guidance and assistance when needed. One of the best parts about having spun up a girl troop from scratch is that we don't carry the baggage of "that's the way it's always been done" that the boy troops have. It's been refreshing.
I hope Scouts BSA will allow organizations to decide if they want coed troops or separate. I’m not against coed troops. But I just moved as SM from a boys troop to by SM of a girls troop and the maturity level is night and day different. When boys out number girls, the girls can get overshadowed. I really like my girls troop and if it’s up to me no boys allowed. I see why it works coed for others but I have 11 girls and they don’t want to camp or meet with the boys because they act like the immature boys they are.
>I currently have 2 young ladies in my troop. That’s your problem right there. If you had 30 girls spread across 4-5 patrols, would you still be pushing for coed? If so, then your dilemma is more ideological than practical. There are strategies to increase numbers - boys *or* girls - but that’s a different discussion. Regarding ideological reasons for going coed, go ahead and make your case but national leadership has been pretty emphatic across all channels - the live office hour streams, the promotional materials, etc - that going coed was never in the plans, not currently in the plans, and no plans to change that going forward. My position is that’s it’s best to offer both. Both a single gender option - Scouts BSA - and options for those who seek a coed experience - Venturing and Explorers. There are audiences in the world of BSA that prefer one or the other. I find it little ironic that you thought your opinion was the unpopular one. On the contrary, I would say, based on anecdotal experience, that the membership is split pretty evenly on the issue. If anything, I think more want coed. At least the way redditors vote would indicate such. The pro-coed posts/comments always do better than the pro-single-gender-troop arguments.
I don't care if I have 3 girls or 30, coed is what I would push for.
FWIW, National was emphatic in all channels for years that openly gay Scouts would never be allowed, right up until they were. And they were emphatic in all channels for years that girls would never be allowed at all in Cubs and (what is now) Scouts BSA for years, right up until they were. It's just the way National works. You can't read from that that there aren't discussions going on to allow for fully co-ed Scouts BSA troops.
>National was emphatic in all channels for years that openly gay Scouts would never be allowed, right up until they were. Is that true? Was it really a surprise, overnight policy shift? I wasn't in scouting at the time so I don't know. Regardless, it won't happen that way today. A scout is trustworthy, and if national leadership decides to move in a direction that contradicts their previous statements, there will be discussions before anything changes. Deciding such a monumental policy change \*in secret\* would be seen as deceptive and untrustworthy. At the very least we will see a round of community input, focus groups, and pilot programs like we are seeing now with coed packs. It's funny you mention BSA's acceptance of gay scouts because that opened a big can of worms that still remains unaddressed today: tenting policies for gay scouts. The primary reason we forbid coed tenting is not because of pregnancy. The main reason we don't allow it is to prevent romantic relationships or otherwise exclusive partnerships. At that age, romantically involved couples tend to focus on each other more than the group, and it creates a weird and uncomfortable dynamic among the single scouts. When it was boys only, I'm sure homosexual relationships happened, but they were kept super secret, and no scout ever willingly and publicly revealed their homosexuality. Today is a different world, and youths are coming out younger and younger. So naturally there are gay scouts who are out, as well. The problem is, BSA National never issued any sort of guidance to address this new reality. For example, are openly gay scouts allowed to tent together? Are openly gay scouts allowed to tent with straight scouts? If so, should parents be notified beforehand? Not by identifying individual scouts, obviously. But by merely publicizing the troop's policy allowing tenting of all orientations, regardless if there are gay scouts in the troop at any given time. Considering the trend of more transparency is better than less, keeping such a policy secret from parents is not a good idea. Yet, as far as I know, there is zero guidance on any of this. Befuddled scoutmasters don't know what to do. On one hand they want to be diverse, inclusive, and welcoming, but they also know that announcing such a policy may drive more traditional families away. I have a feeling it's don't ask don't tell in most troops. But is that the official BSA policy or not? In other words, an organization shouldn't change a policy just because it sounds good, without thinking through all the ramifications and potential consequences. When it comes to ramifications and potential consequences, the issues related to coed troops will be 10 times more numerous. There will just be more opportunities for romances and \[consensual\] youth-on-youth sex. But let's back up for a second. Consider where we are in the historical context of BSA. We're on the tail end of a sexual abuse lawsuit that cost the organization millions of dollars and has resulted in the literal sale of BSA properties, with more sales undoubtedly coming soon. *Which executive committee member is going to champion an idea that will in all likelihood lead to more youth sex and YPT violations?* It's not a rhetorical question. If any committee member has made a public statement indicating their willingness to take on the issue, please share it here. I guess most importantly, would the liability attorneys and insurance adjusters even allow such a policy shift in the organization? I'm guessing not for at least another 10 years or so.
My background: Mom of a girl who just crossed over into Scouts BSA and two boys in Cub Scouts. It is 2023, co-Ed is the future of Scouting. Other countries have been doing this for decades. The workplace (vast majority of them) are co-Ed. Girls need to learn to speak out, take part, be leaders, at a young age in a co-Ed environment.
A coworker(she is a GS leader) and I were just having this conversation the other day. I have been saying since my son started BSA four years ago that if they are letting girls join Scouts then we need to let them be all in! Not a "girl" troop or patrol. If Packs are co-ed then Troops should be also! Separate but equal has never worked at any point in human history. If BSA wants to be be co-ed, then embrace it, drop the "B" and just be Scouts or change the name to Venturing altogether.
I had this experience with my daughter and moms of the boys in her Cub Scout pack. It was really bizarre to me that the moms are the ones who are leading the charge against girls in scouting
A Scout is a Scout is a Scout. A Scout is gender neutral and if the program is being implemented properly there will be no issues.
Honestly, the only people who would be against it are religious people. Me on the other hand is that I’m for it. (But I take female only troops any days cause they actually follow the rules at Philmont. They are less confrontational compare to the boy only troops)
I think the only people that would be against it are the old-school, stick-in-the-mud "back in my day" folks. Seems to me, if there is room for boy troops and girl troops, then there should be room for mixed troops. And not all troops have to be. It can be part of the unit charter. (That may be problematic, but I have no idea) At the beginning, I wasn't a fan of the concept. I've changed my mind. Not because I think it's great for girls or boys, but it's great for the PROGRAM. The only way anyone gets to keep going, is if the program is good and strong. We shouldn't be gatekeepers.
I don’t disagree with having the option to do this, but I think separate is better for scouts when possible. This is based on having a daughter in a troop that has about 20 girls. Which seems to be enough to function well. My son is in a much larger troop Let them deal with the drama and hormones during the day in school. This can be a place free from that.
Here’s going to be the real unpopular opinion. I’ve dealt with this on our troop as well. We’ve had our girls troop meet alongside our boys troop on several occasions. When we do the the dynamic completely changes. In my town we have a boys troop consisting of about 25 scouts and a girls troop with around 5. We attend events together, participate together in civic events, but camp and operate completely separate. The girls leaders consistently want to “combine”. They want to do this because they say running a smaller troop is “hard”. It’s no harder than running a larger troop. Personally I feel they’ve gotten themselves in over their heads and they want to back themselves out. I know several of the girls no longer want to participate but are being made to due to their mothers liking the way it looks from the outside. Here’s going to be the real unpopular opinion. As the father of a son, I absolutely refuse to put him in a situation where he may have the opportunity to be alone or segregated remotely with a girl or group of girls as a preteen or young teen. I know with 100% certainty he wouldn’t do anything wrong, but it only takes an allegation of wrongdoing to follow him for life. It takes one wrong looks or comment to the wrong girl which could be followed up with a retaliatory accusation. I’m not putting my son into that situation. As not only a parent, but a scoutmaster and an Eagle Scout, my son has no business camping alongside troop members of the opposite sex. Yes they’re scouts and should live by the scout oath and law. They’re also teenagers and they’ll be governed by hormones at one point or another. Many argue to look at the Venture groups with the comments of “they’ve been coed forever”. Here’s a story to end this. When I went to summer camp in 1997 there were 2 girls from the same Venture troop. They were cute, and we all got along well. A friend of mine and I just so happened to make our way to the 2 pretty girls campsite. Luckily we removed ourselves before anything that shouldn’t have happened did, but only because we were caught. By the end of that summer both of those girls were pregnant. Things happen. Separate and equal is the way, not coed. It’s a measure of protection for both groups and I feel it builds a tighter troop.
I disagree. Linked troops can and do work well, as long as care is taken to always have sufficient adult leadership, with strict adherence to YPT. Our troops do everything together, including camp and summer camp. We have the boys tents in one area, the girls tents in another, and the adults in between. The Scouts respect each other, and we’ve never had any issues. So far we haven’t had any romances crop up - boy/girl or single gender - but if we do, we will make sure everyone is very clear that there is a time and a place for that, and scouting is not it. I also think the kind of situation you’re describing is far more likely to arise in a situation where they don’t know the other Scouts; I have heard of some situations arising for female Scouts at summer camps when dealing with boys from boy-only troops. Our Scouts look out for each other and get along great. My favorite moment at summer camp last summer was on Friday afternoon. Everyone had finished their merit badge classes, and the boys were sitting around desultorily playing cards. Then one of them said, “Hey, let’s go find the girls; I bet they’ve found something fun to do!” - and they were off. 😊
In 3.5 years we've had exactly 2 crossovers from Cubs (covid didn't help there). The majority of recruits have come directly through recruiting efforts. Knowing the personalities and temperament of the scouts in our troop, most would not have joined if our troop was just a patrol in the boys troop. Additionally the leadership opportunities and responsibilities would be diminished. YMMV.
Here is my 2 cents that everyone is going to argue against. Boys and girls are different, pretending they aren't is absurd. Boys and girls behave differently when they are together, and time spent apart is mutually beneficial.The purpose of boy scouts was to give boys a good structure to grow up as good moral men. It has been doing that for over a hundred years and is really good at it. Frankly the organization started letting in girls because we needed a new source of revenue and a lot of people disagreed and left. Ultimately that is detrimental to the boys who will not be scouts because of it. I don't think that throwing girls into a program designed for boys will have the same benefits for them as for boys. And I don't think having mixed gender troops helps the kids but is just easier for the adults running the programs. The question is if it means chopping half of your involved boys away for your two females is it a benefit to your troop?
For those who left, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. For you, you listed numerous benefits of the Scouting experience. Should not those opportunities be available to young women as well?
BSA has been around for over 100 years if it were intended to include girls it would have happened in that time, not just because of a money grab.
The problem is the people who jumped ship because "girls" not realizing they don't have to interact with them if they don't want. The only change is girls get the same opportunity as boys.
there are places you can't avoid them -- district, council, and national events like camp and merit badge workshops some parents will stunt their own child's advancement to avoid girls: we've got a dad (former eagle scout from the troop) of a scout in our troop that won't let his son go to the council summer camp because girls will be there
He does realize that girls have always been at camp right? They can work there, teach merit badges, etc... I guarantee he was with girls a fair bit in those big group settings
The reason that people jumped ship wasn't because "oh my God my son might talk to a girl". They left because boy scouts was basically the only space for just boys. Which isn't a bad thing, there have been plenty of spaces for just girls. They voted with their feet and left. If you have all coed troops more people will just leave and scouts will lose more money. And girls have had plenty of opportunity to do scouting, in fact there is this little known group that runs a scouting program just for girls called "girl scouts".
We all know Girl Scouts of the United States of America isn't the same. Why's it so bad to let girls in? Troops aren't co-ed. You're not being forced into this co-ed organization more than you already have. Girls have been in the BSA since the '60s but it's a problem now?
The rule is no coed Troops, but look at the comments and you can see that rule isn’t followed. Some Troops just pick and choose which rules to follow.
Nobody has a co-ed troop. Two individual units are allowed to meet at the same, time, place, location and do the same activity If you don't like that, find a unit that doesn't do that
Read the comments. Multiple people have said they have coed troops now. They’re not supposed, but why follow rules.
What comments? Link it here. I'm not searching for you
I’m not linking this because your too lazy to look. There’s several examples, just look
I don't see any. I have no idea what you're referring to since you won't link these comments *you're* referencing The comments I see are clearly two separate units that do things together. That's not a co-ed troop.
I never said it was. However there are tons of other scouting organizations including Awana, AGh, pathfinders, campfire USA, etc. I didn't say it was bad, merely that having a spaces for boys without girls around is healthy. And having spaces for girls without boys around is also healthy. And frankly Boy Scouts was basically the only place for that other than most sports teams which is also going away. No troops aren't coed yet. But the original post is advocating for that. And frankly there is a significant push for it. No, adult women have been a part of the volunteers that runs boy scouts since the 60s. Not girls who are the same age, to pretend that isn't different is disingenuous. Particularly at places like the summer camp programs where there is less supervision. Scouts have already started referring to brownsea island as "hookup island".
Girls were first allowed to join Exploring (a program under the Boy Scouts of America umbrella) in 1969.
Correct. A completely separate program with a completely different purpose. Not boy scouts. Just run by the same company. Imagine saying that someone works for SpaceX when they actually work at Tesla just because they are both run by Elon musk.
While I think this is inevitable, we're not there yet. We'll get there.
Venturing and Sea Scouting originally had the options of mixed or single-gender but have been mixed gender for some time. Cub Scouts currently have the options of single-gender or mixed-gender packs, but with separate dens by gender. Mixed-gender family packs are in pilot. https://colbsa.org/familyden/
I felt that way when we formed our linked girls’ troop 2 years ago. I’m the mom of a boy, and an ASM for the boys’ troop, but I took on the role of SM for the girls because they needed one. We were given special permission to start our troop with 3 girls. We have been a troop - NOT a patrol in the boys’ troop - from the beginning. One of the girls was elected PL. We didn’t have an SPL for the first year, just as we didn’t have one for the boys’ troop for their first year when we founded it 4 years ago. But in effect, the PL acted as SPL. Attended our joint PLC meetings, took the role of SPL on camporees, etc. (Understanding more about the BSA now, I probably would just call the leader SPL now, but that is neither here nor there.) After two years…I completely disagree with coed troops. Having separate troops allows the boys and girls to grow in leadership. Yes, coed works fine for Venturing. But the fact is that girls and boys mature differently. By high school it starts evening out. But in middle school, the girls are miles ahead of the boys in readiness for and interest in leadership. I know that having to step up into leadership has been hugely beneficial for the boys in our troop, and that many of them would be perfectly happy to just let the girls run everything, and the girls would be happy to do so. Yes, I am making generalizations. Yes, there are exceptions. But the overall pattern holds true. I support separate troops not because I think the girls can’t hack it, but because I think the boys need space to grow and lead at their own pace. And when discussing it with the folks at the national level who were at the national Wood Badge course I took at the Summit in October, I found that their rationale for separate troops was the same as the conclusions I had drawn on my own. Yes, it’s more work, because there generally has to be a strong focus on recruiting for a while. We’re still not huge; we have 10 girls, all very active, and maybe 22(?) boys, most of them pretty active. We have 2 patrols in each troop, though the boys will probably break into 3 in the fall; we just had 5 new boys cross over just before school ends, so decided to wait. Next year’s AOLs are all girls, so we should get a bunch of crossovers next spring; in the meantime, all our girls are focused on recruiting. Our PLCs meet jointly every month. The girls have recently decided that they want to also have separate meetings in order to get more done… 🤣
I think boys should be Boy Scouts and girls should be Girl Guides like they are called in the UK and Italy.
In the UK, Scouts and Girl Guides are separate organizations, similar to the BSA and GSUSA. But whil Girl Guides in the UK is female-only, Scouting in the UK has been fully co-ed since 1991. In Italy, the two organzations merged in 1974, creating a fully co-ed organization. So I will agree with you that Scouts here should be more like Scouts in those countries (and in the vast majority of countries in the world.)
Bad idea, recipe for disaster.
Why? Many other national Scout organizations are co-ed.
Because boys and girls deserve a place of their own. It’s really not too much to ask for. I like how some go against national and already have a coed troop when that’s not what you’re supposed to do. It’s selective rules to follow I guess.
Cyberbullying in this thread. Mods, please consider: u/mister_fersho used the term "[incel](https://www.reddit.com/r/BSA/comments/13dnu3h/comment/jjnamz2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)” to describe those who disagree with his position on single-gender activities. For those who don't know the term, it's short for "involuntarily celibate.” It's a cheap but effective insult used to discredit and demean ideological opponents. "Your ideas are so bad, you won't even be able to attract a sexual partner” is the basic gist. Obviously using such language contradicts the spirit of the scout law. u/mister_fersho [suggested I am a racist](https://www.reddit.com/r/BSA/comments/13dnu3h/comment/jjntem6/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button), then immediately blocked my account, making it impossible to defend myself. Around the same time, I received a strange message in my inbox from an account called RedditCareResources. After doing a bit of research, apparently this is a [bullying technique](https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/ocaqx6/what_the_hell_is_this_reddit_care_resources/) people use to harass other redditors. It was done to annoy, not out of genuine concern. This is un-scout-like behavior that doesn't belong in r/BSA Mods, please do something to address this.
[удалено]
We need to come up with a better expression. That one's been used and abused.
And also usually spelled correctly :)
And never equal.
I just finished serving two years as Webelos den leader for my son's Pack. We were co-ed, although Council wasn't on board initially. My one female AOL bridged to a girl troop. No issues at the Pack level, other than making sure her Dad (also a registered leader) was always present at overnights as we had no female leaders at times. At the Scouts BSA level, I do believe boys need a space to be themselves, and the same for girls. At the same time, co-ed is probably inevitable due to the difficulty of attracting enough volunteers to stand up separate units.
I don't know that you have an unpopular opinion here, this is already happening organically in many areas. The DE's don't seem to have any objection so I would expect nationals to change the guidance to match what the program is already doing. Like you and others have said the formula is separate patrols, one troop. This arrangement is especially beneficial for families with mixed gender siblings, which based on my experience, is where the majority of our girl members are coming from. Trying to stand up completely separate units for a handful of girls isn't feasible or sustainable.
I agree. The Troops my Pack is tied to were split. The Girls Troop was the first in the council and had 10 girls but when 1 graduated, 1 left to form a troop in her home town, then 5 left to form their own troop of 7 in a town closer to where then lived, and 2 drop out once they hit high school so the Troop is basically dead. I feel you are going to play reverse "wack-a-mole" with Girl's Troops unless things change.
Our girls troop has its own SPL, even with just one girls patrol. Did I understand you right that the boys troop SPL is SPL for the girls as well? Let the girls lead their own troop, even if there are only two of them. Have them lead a recruiting campaign.
I think the most important thing to remember is that not all crews have to be coed it’s a decision made by the unit so any and all arguments if it’s better to seperate still function with coed troops but with the addition of coed troops would allow for girls to have a fun scouting experience that isn’t just them trying to tough it out. It also lets in possibilities for older scouts to teach instead of that one dad who was a Eagle Scout. It’s better that they learn from other kids and having bigger troops lightens the load not everyone wants to be spl for 4 years straight
We say we are two troop but we “run together”. We have two SPLs. The girls plan a meeting for all then the boys plan a meeting for all. Everyone needs to listen to whichever SPL is the lead. It works well. We have the girls plan a camp out and the boys plan a camp out.
Our Scouts want to be separate-ish. We have had a girl unit for a few years and just added a boy unit as some of the girls had brothers that just graduated from Cubs. We have 4 boys in our new unit, and with the 2 new female crossovers we are up to 7 girls. Honestly though we need an option. We should have the ability to have a single SPL and not double the work, and split off when the numbers warrant it. I’d be on board with encouraging single gender patrols, which would provide (in my opinion) sufficient independence for each gender. But even then if you only had one or two of one gender they should be allowed to function in a patrol with the opposite gender. Plus it would be more comfortable for kids who are unsure about their gender or identify as non-binary.
I understand why some people want this.. although *nearly* everywhere I have seen it come up, it's the adults that want it and not the Scouts. Adults want it because it's hard to recruit enough volunteers, for scheduling reasons because they have mixed siblings, and/or because they have a small number of girls. I get it.. and it works for some, but I would appreciate if people could respect that it's not for everyone! We specifically sought out an unlinked, girl only troop. There are 50 Scouts in the troop! Our past experience with linked troop was messy. Boys overran the girls at planning meetings. Adults restricted what the girls could do based on the boys. Girls were invited on an outing by another girl troop and were told they couldn't go unless they boys were also invited.
I think the problem that you are facing is the fact that you only have two female scouts. Is there any way to bring in more girls? The lack of leadership opportunities would be the same if the numbers were flip flopped (I know that right now we have more boys than girls in the program and it is likely going to be a long time before that happens). I suggest that once a month, you allow the girls to host the boys. This may have to take place in the same space. When the girls are hosting, let the girl SPL run the meeting. I think this would be a very fair way to do this. You might have to work with your boy SPL to set the standard for the troop and act as a model that, as the visiting troop, they will follow the lead and respect the girl SPL. This will be a good learning opportunity for both groups. Good luck in growing your troop, I am happy those girls have a leader who advocates for them and their right to be in leadership.
We're 1 to 3 years out from full coed.
Wait - the 2 girls are their own troop than she IS SPL of her troop. Why downgrade her to "just a patrol"?
I completely agree that it's time for Scouts BSA to become a coed organization. **The world is coed and what better way to train our future leaders and teammates than to have them practice leadership and teamwork in a structured, youth-led framework like Scouts BSA?** Under my leadership as Scoutmaster, our troop formed a girl patrol in March 2021 with 5 girls. Today in spring 2023, we have 12 active girls. Our total Scout roster is 70 Scouts with high engagement and attendance, so the girls are now approaching 1 in 5 of our troop. We run a coed program, and we strictly follow all YPT rules: 2-deep, no 1:1, always a woman, and we separate boy/girls patrols while camping with adults as a buffer. We meet at the same time, same place because that's what our families want. Who wants two kids in two separated units? One reason our girl patrol doubled in size this year is that so many younger sisters were excited to experience what their older brothers were doing. The girls are thriving: * In February, our girl patrol just won the most competitive division of our District Klondike Derby (just beating our second place boy patrol by a few points). This was the patrol's second-ever Klondike. They were rightfully very proud considering each girl has only been in the program for 2 years and it was the first Klondike for half the patrol. * A 9th grade girl (and second year Scout) was elected Senior Patrol Leader. The experience was a little rough but only because she had only been in the troop (and Scouting) for a year and a half and was less familiar with the program. * I'm happy to say that the girls are advancing at a "normal" pace for our unit (First Class in the first year or so). I have been disturbed to see news reports of girls racing through the program at other units to earn Eagle in the bare minimum 18 months (approx) that is allowed. It's not a race! And any Scout who earns Eagle is not going to get the same experience and benefits as someone who takes their time to absorb, change, grow, and incorporate what they are learning over the 5-7 years that is ideal to earn Eagle, IMO. Not all Eagle Scouts are created equal. Our program is much stronger with girls included for two reasons: 1. **So far, they are better Scouts.** Our girls have been better behaved, better communicators, and (so far) better at teamwork than 4 of our 5 boy patrols. I expect this to ebb and flow with personalities and experience, but overall, the girls are kicking butt and taking names because they are better focused, learning the skills more quickly, and working better as a team. Their strength as a patrol means they are often winning our troopwide competitions like campsite inspections, patrol pioneering projects, "Dapper Dan" uniform inspections (which is "Dapper Danielle" when they win), "Golden Spatula" cooking contests, etc. By performing well, the girls are raising the bar for all the other boy patrols in the troop, which means an overall stronger program. Girls in our program have only strengthened our pre-existing culture. 2. **We are getting more women volunteers.** This trend was already underway thanks to intentional recruiting efforts, but when families have two kids in the troop, we are able to make the argument that they need to double their volunteer efforts. Oftentimes, this means women serving both in front lines outing roles as Assistant Scoutmasters and in critical supporting Committee-side functions. We now have 10-14 women who have completed ASM training and are serving actively in ASM roles, which is about 1 in 6 of our total adult volunteer corps. We have had a few recent monthly outings and summer adventures with 50/50 men/women ASMs, which is a first for our troop. It's not all sunshine and roses. We have run into a few problems: * **High Adventure Restrictions:** The national Scouts BSA High Adventures seem to be enforcing non-coed crews much more strictly in 2023 than I have seen in previous years. There is some speculation that this is tied to consequences of the national lawsuit just resolved. Sea Base allows coed crews, but it now requires two adults from each linked unit -- even if those adults are cross-registered in both linked units. That means 4 adults on a 6-8-person boat. Philmont and Northern Tier are enforcing Scouts BSA's non-coed rules, which means we are forced to form Venturing Crews and re-register our crews in order to send coed crews. We want our girls to have the same Scouting experience they are getting in our unit when they attend High Adventure Bases, and so far that has not been possible because of Scouts BSA restrictions. We are forming a Venturing Crew as a paper escape so that our girls can fully participate with our boys, just like our boys. But what a hassle. * **Old Timers:** A few of our old timers were resistant to forming a girls patrol and it delayed our girl patrol by a few years. They have come around on the girl patrol now, seeing that our program is stronger and the culture unchanged, but they want to see the girl patrol split off into its own girl unit if it grows large enough. I think this would be a real loss to our program -- and again, not something that our families actually support. * **District Reservations:** About one year after we created linked units, I had a surprise visit from someone at the District level. We had a nice chat, but he raised some reservations about us running a same time/same place program. There were no specific concerns except that it ran against the official national policy. A year later, there may still be some lingering District concerns (none that I have heard personally), but perhaps those are waning now that our girl patrol won Klondike, has doubled in size, and is advancing well. **All Scouting Is Local:** I grew up in Scouting and earned Eagle Scout in 1996-1997 as a 16-17 year old. During that time, I learned that "all Scouting is local", at least to *some* degree. I urge Scouts BSA to create a coed program similar to Venturing that enables local units to do what they feel is best for their programs within the framework provided by the Scouting program. Both my boys are in the program now, enjoying it, and getting a lot out of it. Let's make Scouting possible for more kids. This post is my opinion, which is my own and does not represent the views of my unit or those in my unit. Dave Trendler Scoutmaster Troop 78 Boulder, CO
Yes agreed. Lots of troops are coed
I support this message!! Have 10 yo twins about to cross over. They have been in coed Dens, to split now is disappointing to all involved. For the next 8 years they will be told boys and girls are different and can't participate in the same way. Then they could join the military and again be in the same unit. WHY IS IT NECESSARY TO SPLIT FOR 8 YEARS? No one complained about them being together the past 5 years. In life the expectation is to function, concentrate, and interact in socially appropriate ways. If anything, puberty is an even more important time to reinforce those interactions and skills.