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David, sorry for any confusion. I wasn't trying to interpret "it". The italics was from the online reference that I copied. I agree with you. The entire passage was a discussion on divorce without cause. And, Jesus was suggesting that celibacy would be better than trying to take on a wife knowing you could discard her as though she were a commodity. But "eunuch" needs no interpretation. That's why He referenced them an example. These folks were present in ancient times. I'm sure they were as perplexing then as folks who want to shun their reproductive roles these days are. However, society managed to find a place for them. And Jesus was pointing out that if such ones as those could manage (some willingly some forcibly), then his disciples could do just as well in celibacy if they couldn't set aside their perceived right to toss wives aside willy-nilly. My point is, if in referencing them, Christ was treating them seriously, we would do well to do likewise.

BTW - (From my experience 3 decades ago, but I think it still holds true.) Pubs in Britain are welcoming places ... even for the temperate. And depending on the bloke, there's almost as much to be gained in them as on these forums. I don't think we have room for denial. That a percentage of the population would shun roles based on reproductive potential is nothing new ... "For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it." Matthew 19:12 This statement of Jesus was in a cultural context that only provided tracks for fulfilling reproductive potential. He was speaking against that sense that those roles are eternally immutable. What is new is the push to accord those people the same privilege as the sex opposite their reproductive potential. So, in this youth's case, instead of challenging women to accept a female who prefers to express masculinity, and maybe "up their game" by encouraging girls to do a few "boy activities" for the youth's sake (and ultimately, the sake of equal rights), the child is being tossed "into the other court." It's the easy solution. And works in many contexts. But, BSA is quite intentional about there being a "male track", just as GS/USA is intentional about being a "female track". Both have evolved over the decades So the question also becomes: what does GS/USA lack that makes an 8 year old who shuns her reproductive potential unwelcome?

For as long as I can remember, Cubs used to be fully operational without camping. That part was gravy. And, frankly, I found Pack camping to be exhausting. Family camping was more enjoyable for me as a dad.

I think part of the compulsion to have the boys make the sign while reciting the code comes from external definitions: So, folks outside of scouting use it as a means to vouchsafe a vow or testimony. That is, in reference to some previous statement, they will say "scout's honor" while making the sign. For scouts themselves, such an action would be superfluous. They already promised to be trustworthy, etc ... So it is understood that they are expected to live up to any other claims, be it motto, code, or slogan.

Not GBB patrol. Every patrol should be that. The GB patrol, as defined by GBB, is merely the troop leader's council (youth leaders, not adults) out on training. So, to finish the story about making pizza on the Laurel Ridge with my troop's leadership corps ... next week I come back and in our patrol meeting I say, "Hey guys, the SPL had us making pizza over the campfire last weekend. How bout let's up our game for the next campout?" We wound up starting the tradition of chocolate fondue. The other patrol started making steaks. Franks and beans no more! All because some older scouts took time for one more winter campout to help some Life scout cut a trail through mountain laurel.

Well, sex is defined based on reproductive function (with some exceptions for chromosomal anomalies), so the youth is speaking against that. In doing so, of course, the child is "making it up" -- just like I can make up all kinds of things that speak against material facts (or so may atheist colleagues claim I do). There is no "gender switch", if there were, we would be having a much different conversation. Is deceit intended? No. The youth is convinced, based on perceptions of what a person of opposite sex should think, feel, and do, that s/he more like that person and not like any anatomically similar person who would concede their sex based on anatomy alone. If thoughts/feelings/actions take precedence over reproductive role, as they hear society suggesting they should, then the next logical step is to assume the identity dictated by cognitive, not biological, processes. This is a much different process than the tom-boy or effeminate male described by @@Stosh and @sentinel. Tom boys or girly men see themselves as exceptional members of the same sex, not normal members of the opposite sex. Each person who I or my wife knew who attempted to identify opposite their biological sex is so different that I couldn't find a common motivation. Some had serious cognitive impairments. Others were no less sharp than you and I. Most felt odd for a long time, but unlike the youth in this story, could not articulate it until their teens or later. Only one was abused by an adult (lay-clergy, if I recall). I can't speak to behaviors of self-mutilation or other negative associations. Those details haven't come up when talking to them or their parents. Since they have come up when talking other non-trans folks, I wonder how much such an association is by chance.

Western PA, mix rural/suburban. Nothing particularly unusual about them.As far as getting attention, moves like this ain't getting these kids in the papers. They are pretty much ignored. Maybe that's part of the problem! We consider ourselves close to two of these kids, and couldn't tell you if isolation is a cause or a symptom. The medical treatments are impoverishing the ones who can't be talked out of it by the time they're old enough to medicate for it.

My strong suspicion is that the "local option" was divided. Locally, some parent didn't like how their neighbor was parenting their girl-by-biology in front of their boy. (Full disclosure: My suspicion is based on my experience getting a phone call from my director of field service. Not a good day. But there's my bias.) The mom certainly checked "male" in the youth application. Unless someone punched "female" on internet rechartering, there is no way a BSA would have a clue about this female-by-biology. More likely, someone didn't like how the local option was exercised and made a stink. Or worse, nobody made a stink. But some activist decided to promote this kid as a utopian example of how trans kids are just like any other kid of the identified sex. Then, someone in council saw the news-clipping and poured gasoline on the fire. @@NJCubScouter, each one of my kids had at least one classmate (and one other in a grade above/below) looking toward reassignment surgery. If that is the pattern and our our tiny school district is representative, the rate is >.5%.

The truth? We don't know what leads to an identification or orientation under the premise of a permissive sexual ethic. If your anatomy does not constrain your future sexual expression, color or pattern preferences may be a step along the cascade towards a long term (possibly life-long) identification.

Question: why aren't we talking about a Green Bar Patrol? I mean, if the boy's a "veteran" scout, then he should have a PoR or implementing a service project through which he may continue to develop leadership. That puts him in the Green Bar Patrol. Green Bar patrol wants some special training: to be better at teaching aquatics? Give them a plan for achieving BSA Guard. to master canoeing? Plan that challenging trip. to backpack better? Line up an extra week of hiking someplace rugged. Possibilities are endless. The boy can be doing the Green Bar activity one week and his patrol activity the next. Yes, leaders on a development track are perfectly capable of being in two patrols at once. I remember sitting in a back room planning stuff (like the yearly calendar) with the ASPL maybe once. The rest of the time, we were by a camp-fire baking pizza with the leadership corps, thinking up the current life-scouts' next crazy location for an Eagle project, or what we could do for an additional week besides troop leader training with those slow-on-the-uptake city boys. One of my goals as an advisor to a general interest crew is to give youth something to take back to their (boy or girl scout) troops.

Not speaking for @@blw2 ... however, I've crossed paths with a wide spectrum of such adults and youth. Moreover, their numbers seem to be burgeoning. And many of them do vacillate between their biological sex and the opposite (or novel alternative). The vision of any 8 year old's counter-biological desire (or teen's "self discovery") being fixed is it's own stereotype. @@NJCubScouter, this field in particular is finding unknowns faster than resolutions. So, we have policy wonks choosing their experts, and the very choice is laden with bias.

That would require letting any female-by-biology join the BSA. Maybe girls who want to be boy scouts should just come out as 1% trans. I'm sure there would be some way to work that into the birth certificate. We presume the unit is welcoming. But who is the unit? How did any professional get wind of this "misplaced" cub? Somebody's Akela started howling. @@tyke, have you been in a position of standing by a youth who other parents didn't want to be in the unit?

@@Beavah, mergers are never pleasant. I think the new troop did not really rely on the brain trust of the older troop's more seasoned adults. Son #2 had aged out of the old troop, so I had no "skin" in the game. I sat on a couple of BoRs to provide an example, but after that I directed my attention to outdoor program. @@TAHAWK, we can recite rules ad nauseum, but when adults think the rules are stupid, they won't be followed. At some point, I hope to be around a fire with these committee members, and then be in a position to warn them that they are skating on thin ice with their boys. @@Stosh, Mea culpa for not being on the troop committee and extracting an apology. But I have a crew that is barely holding itself together. Being litigious takes more time than I'm prepared to spend. So, there's nothing for it but to delegate it to the ASM, pinch my nose at the stink, and play a long game. At least, the boy knows he's in the right, he knows that he can choose another unit to advance under. Knowledge is power.

How "BSA comes across" exemplifies the rift between US "coastals" and "heartlanders". In some parts, actions like this are met with resounding applause. Whereas the conciliatory actions you suggest are met with notable membership loss or lack of enthusiasm for joining. Welcome one, serve fewer. Maybe with Brexit, the UK will have job openings for parents of transgendered youth who want to be part of a more inclusive scouting experience?

It is possible to overthink this. And, I think with the plethora of materials (trickled down to us from management consultants) scouters are encouraged to attempt "henpecking" boys into ace patrols by balancing skills, age, enthusiasm, etc .... The fact remains that the best favor adults can do for boys is to find the kind farmer or city park manager with the nice field for camping on the "back nine", give the phone # to the most mature boy to set a date, acquire a few spare tarps, some cheap rope, and give them the occasional weekend where the SM can guide them from a safe distance. Planning meals and procuring provision can be a fine adventure, and the less miles put on the vehicles, the more time spent on the perfect lunch, dinner, and breakfast. For many scouts, years may go by and that's all they'll ever ask for. So give them that, and you have a skeleton on which to build the patrol they'll cherish for decades.

Positive reinforcement without reward is not better than negative without teeth. Next example: Rank-sum (1 for scout to 8 for eage) of current patrol members + rank sum of last year's patrol graduates - last year's rank sum.

And a top-of-the-AFC-North to ya laddies ... As the Irish Pittsburghers are saying tonight.

JTE is supposed to help guide scouters going forward with concrete examples of what we all are and are not looking for. Let's talk carrots and sticks please. By way of example, let's try this: +1 for each SPL elected by the boys in the troop, or each PL elected by the boys in his patrol. -50 for each SPL appointed by any other means. +1 for every other troop PoR assigned by SPL. -50 for every PoR assigned by any other means (including troop-wide elections) ...

Maybe we all should just get participation trophies! I think it matters a lot. If someone sees I've had tons of posts that nobody cares about, they will take what I say with a grain of salt. Also, the topics we post are generally tough chestnuts, and often there is no perfect or best solution (as in my blindsided-by-BoR scout who then blindsided them back). But there are lots of really good ones. Maybe some that work for one person but not for someone else. So the +1's and -1's give a good sense of that. I guess if there were someone who was always spouting off really terrible ideas (but not so vile as to be censored by the moderators), a swarm of -1's might give everyone else a sense to take what was said with a grain of salt. But, most everyone here has something pretty interesting to say, so -1's are more often an indication of thumb size than approbation.

Because our troop has had neither Leadership Corps nor Venture Patrol for quite some time (and certainly the GS I've known have had no such structures) it seems like our venturing crew goes through cycles of being one or the other. Right now, I am squarely advising a Leadership Corps, who have no vision for big-ticket scouting (or even "small ticket, extreme/specialty challenges") but want to do be better scouts. (Thus the meetings with simple-minded knot-tying sessions.) At other times, its a group who comes in singing "I want to get away, I want to fly away ..." To which, our old bones sometimes scream for trying to keep up with them. I suspect the same things happens among older boys in troops not closely tied to a crew, there are different mixes at different times. So, the cross-overs' experience is going to be somewhat shaped by that.

No. You want them prepared so that -- as soon as they are in an open field of tall dry grass with a fire starter and time to kill -- they wont have to depend on an SM taking up the rear to come along and waste half his water securing the land against wildfire. We can certainly hope that they make rank promptly after cross-over, but my observation is that, the better the troop in terms of activity and youth leadership, the more sudden the spread between levels of advancement from boy to boy in the same class. It takes a combination of determination on the boys' part and setting aside time for individual review on a PL's or TG's to move a cross-over even one rank. But if you are available, especially to help chaperon if the boys decide as a patrol to have a special camping weekend, it will increase the opportunities to put all of those words into practice.

I think we also underestimate the desire of older scouts to mentor younger ones. My boys love the venturing stuff, but although they like it because it gives them space from the youngns, they like it just as much because it gives them stories to tell the 1st and 2nd year boy scouts.

@@TAHAWK, the colors are in the right order. Instant improvement.

Barry, at was meant to be a +1. Thumbs and iPads don't mix.

No sign necessary. No problem if you use one. (Remember my rule #1?) The goal is to get it into their little heads that they are to be clean in their outdoor manners and careful with fire.