National
Mixed reaction to Boy Scouts plan on gay members
Critic says Sandusky would be new ‘poster boy’ for group
‘This would be an incredible step forward in the right direction,’ said Zach Wahls, an Eagle Scout and founder of the group Scouts for Equality. (Photo courtesy of Change.org)
A statement issued by the Boy Scouts of America on Monday saying the organization is considering dropping its national policy banning gay scouts and scout leaders was hailed by LGBT advocates as an important breakthrough in the fight for equality.
But two of the nation’s leading anti-gay groups warned that if the BSA’s board votes next week to drop its ban on gays, as predicted by sources familiar with the Boy Scouts, it would lead to a “mass exodus” of scouts and scout leaders from traditional, religious-oriented families and communities.
In its statement released on Monday, the BSA said the change it was considering would allow the religious, civic and educational organizations that are chartered to operate scouting units throughout the country to make the final decision on whether or not to accept gays.
“Currently, the BSA is discussing potentially removing the national membership restriction regarding sexual orientation,” the statement says.
“This would mean there would no longer be any national policy regarding sexual orientation, and the chartered organizations that oversee and deliver Scouting would accept membership and select leaders consistent with each organization’s mission, principles, or religious beliefs,” says the statement.
“BSA members and parents would be able to choose a local unit that best meets the needs of their families,” it says.
NBC News, which first reported that BSA was considering lifting its gay ban prior to the release of the statement, also reported that the organization was expected to approve the changes at a board of directors meeting within the next week.
Janelle Moritz, a public relations representative for the Boy Scouts of America, told the Blade she could not confirm the NBC report about the timing of a board meeting or what the board would decide. She said BSA would not comment on the matter beyond what it said in its statement, which doesn’t say when the group will decide on the issue.
Other news media outlets, however, reported that BSA sources confirmed that the board meeting would take place next week, mostly likely at the BSA national headquarters in Irving, Texas.
“The Boy Scouts of America have heard from scouts, corporations, and millions of Americans that discriminating against gay scouts and scout leaders is wrong,” said Herndon Graddick, president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. “Scouting is a valuable institution and this change will only strengthen its core principles of fairness and respect,” he said.
“This would be an incredible step forward in the right direction,” said Zach Wahls, an Eagle Scout and founder of the group Scouts for Equality. “We look forward to working with BSA Councils and chartering organizations across the country to end the exclusion of our gay brothers in scouting, as well as the gay and lesbian leaders who serve the organizations so well.”
Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said the Boy Scouts’ expected policy change follows the growing support for LGBT equality from the American people.
“The pulse of equality is strong in America, and today it beats a bit faster with news that the Boy Scouts may finally put an end to its long history of discrimination,” Griffin said in a statement. “Our nation and its leaders respect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens, and it’s time the Boy Scouts echo those values.”
A far different response emerged from leaders of the Family Research Council and the American Family Association, two national conservative groups that oppose LGBT rights.
“The Boy Scouts of America board would be making a serious mistake to bow to the strong-arm tactics of LGBT activists and open the organization to homosexuality,” said FRC President Tony Perkins in a statement.
“The mission of the Boy Scouts is to ‘instill values in young people’ and ‘prepare them to make ethical choices,’ and the Scouts’ oath includes a pledge ‘to do my duty to God’ and keep himself ‘morally straight,” he said. “It is entirely reasonable and not at all unusual for those passages to be interpreted as requiring abstinence from homosexual conduct.”
The American Family Associated posted on its website a column by anti-gay advocate Bryan Fischer, who quipped that Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant coach convicted on child molestation charges, would become “the new poster boy” for the Boy Scouts.
“This move, unless the BSA dramatically reverses itself in the immediate future, represents the capitulation to the forces of sexual deviancy,” he said. “The Scouts will have made a deliberate decision to put the sexual integrity of every young man in their care at risk.”
Within a day of the BSA’s announcement that it was considering changing its policy on gay scouts and scout leaders, the FRC and the American Family Association posted appeals on their websites urging members and supporters to call the BSA to urge the group to leave its ban on gays in place.
“As the BSA board meets next week, it is crucial that they hear from those who stand with them and their current policy regarding homosexuality,” FRC said.
Possibly in anticipation of strong opposition by conservative and religious groups, the BSA emphasized in its own statement that the change would allow local units to decide whether or not to admit gays.
“The Boy Scouts would not, under any circumstances, dictate a policy to units, members, or parents,” the statement says. “Under this proposed policy, the BSA would not require any chartered organization to act in ways inconsistent with that organization’s mission, principles or religious beliefs.”
The BSA website says more than 100,000 scouting units are owned and operated by independent chartered organizations.
“Of these, 64.9 percent of all units are chartered to faith-based organizations, 22.7 percent of all units are chartered to civic organizations, and 7.9 percent of all units are chartered to educational organizations,” it says.
It says the chartered organizations are responsible for providing meeting facilities, providing “quality leadership for the scouting unit,” and appointing a representative to coordinate unit operations
A list of BSA chartered organizations posted on its website shows a wide range of religious and civic groups that are likely to differ on whether or not to admit gay scouts and scout leaders.
Among them are the Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and “Baptist Churches,” which traditionally have condemned homosexuality. Others, however, include the United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church, United Methodist Church and Lutheran churches, which have had more accepting policies toward LGBT people.
Civic groups listed on the BSA website as chartered organizations include local Chambers of Commerce, Lions and Rotary clubs, American Legion organizations, Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs, YMCA groups, “non-profit agencies,” and “home owners” groups.
The BSA’s statement saying it is considering removing its national policy banning gay scouts and scout leaders comes seven months after the BSA announced it had conducted a two-year review of the ban and decided to leave it in place.
Monday’s announcement also comes after several prominent corporations, including United Parcel Service and Intel Corporation, withdrew as BSA financial sponsors, saying the gay ban violated their corporate polices of non-discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Others opposing the Boy Scouts ban on gays have organized online petition drives that have gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures calling on the BSA to drop its gay ban.
Among those drawing attention to efforts to end the ban is Eagle Scout Wahls of Iowa, who is straight but has spoken publically about his two lesbian moms.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rrsn33RstKI
Sharon Brackett, co-founder and board chair of the statewide transgender advocacy organization Gender Rights Maryland, said she experienced firsthand how at least some Boy Scout troops and the chartered organizations that operate them are LGBT supportive.
Brackett said she served as a scout master for the local Boy Scout troop in Savage, Md., where her sons were members, before she transitioned from male to female. She said after taking a break during her transition period, the troop and a local Methodist church that served as the chartered organization, welcomed her back once she completed her gender transition.
“My experience has been positive,” she said, noting that women have long served as Boy Scout troop leaders and officials in the chartered organization covering her area had no problem with her coming back.
Brackett said she supports the proposed change by the BSA to leave it up to the chartered organizations to decide whether gay scouts or troops can be admitted. At least in Maryland, she said, there are enough local troops and chartered organizations to choose from that would result in gay youth finding one that will be welcoming.
“Having that choice is the best next step for us at this time,” she said.
Federal Government
Trump-Vance administration removes LGBTQ, HIV resources from government websites
President took similar action shortly after his first inauguration in 2017
The Trump-Vance administration has “eliminated nearly all LGBTQ and HIV focused content and resources” from WhiteHouse.gov and “key federal agency” websites, GLAAD announced in a press release Tuesday.
Prior to President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, GLAAD had catalogued more than 50 links to LGBTQ- and HIV-related content on White House web pages and on websites for the State Department and the Departments of Education, Justice, Defense, Health and Human Services, and Labor, along with other agencies like the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
As of Tuesday, GLAAD specifically found that terms like “lesbian,” “bisexual,” “gay,” “transgender,” “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” and “LGBTQ” are “no longer accessible on WhiteHouse.gov,” while “some LGBTQ-specific pages have been taken down from sites for the Centers for Disease Control, Department of State, and more.”
Among the pages that are no longer accessible on WhiteHouse.gov are an equity report from July 2021, a fact sheet with information on expanding access to HIV prevention and treatment from March 2024, and information about Pride Month.
Among the entries on federal agency websites that are no longer available are 94 entries for “LGBT Rights” that were once published on the State Department’s site and dozens of links to information and resources on “LGBTQI+ Policy” that were once available on the Department of Labor website.
“President Trump claims to be a strong proponent of freedom of speech, yet he is clearly committed to censorship of any information containing or related to LGBTQ Americans and issues that we face,” GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis said. “Today’s action proves the Trump administration’s goal of making it as difficult as possible for LGBTQ Americans to find federal resources or otherwise see ourselves reflected under his presidency.”
Ellis added, “Sadly for him, our community is more visible than ever; and this pathetic attempt to diminish and remove us will again prove unsuccessful.”
Shortly after Trump’s first presidential inauguration in 2017, the Trump-Pence administration scrubbed the White House and federal government websites of LGBTQ and HIV related content, provoking backlash from LGBTQ advocates.
National
Meta’s policy changes ‘putting us back in the dark ages’
Expert says rolling back hate speech protections threatens queer youth
LGBTQ advocates have expressed alarm in recent weeks, as Meta has taken steps to undermine protections for queer youth and apparently worked to appease the incoming conservative administration in Washington.
Meta, the parent company of popular social media and messaging companies Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is owned by Mark Zuckerberg, who was once considered to be an ally of the LGBTQ community.
Two weeks ago, the internet was afire with discussion of Liv, the now-deleted Instagram profile of a “proud black Queer momma of 2” AI made by Meta as part of its AI user dreams.
Then, last week, independent tech journalist Taylor Lorenz revealed that Instagram had been blocking teens from searching LGBTQ-related content for months.
This comes as no surprise to Celia Fisher, a professor of Psychology and the Marie Ward Doty University Chair in Ethics at Fordham University who has spent her career studying children and adolescent health, especially for marginalized groups like the LGBTQ community.
When speaking to the Washington Blade in November 2024 on TikTok, Fisher remarked that it was increasingly difficult to research the Meta platforms. Fisher and her team have used advertisements on social media to recruit youth for anonymous surveys for studies. “One of the advantages of social media is that you can reach a national audience,” she says.
The advertisements are specifically linked to keywords and popular celebrities to reach LGBTQ populations of youth. When she spoke to the Bladeagain this week, she was not surprised to hear that keywords were being blocked from youth. “Now, there is a major barrier to being able to recruit when you are doing online studies.”
It makes her research—which has looked at the mental health of youth online, HIV prevention strategies, and COVID vaccine barriers—impossible. “If Meta prevents researchers from using the platform, then the research can’t be done,” she said.
The search blocks are not just a threat to the research, they are a threat to youth. “Hiding those terms from youth means they can’t see that there is a community out there. That’s a tremendous loss, especially for transgender youth,” said Fisher.
Fisher suspects where the restrictions are coming from, not that Zuckerberg has been particularly opaque as he cozies up to the new administration. “I think there’s been a creeping fear on the part of companies not to do anything that might elicit the ire of more conservative politicians,” she said.
A Meta spokesperson told Lorenz that the restriction was a mistake. “It’s important to us that all communities feel safe and welcome on Meta apps, and we do not consider LGBTQ+ terms to be sensitive under our policies,” said the spokesperson.
Meta backtracked immediately; the next day the company removed longstanding anti-LGBTQ hate speech policies.
Zuckerberg announced large changes to the platform via video in which he sported a $900,000 watch. (More than 1 in 5 LGBTQ adults are living in poverty. More than 1 in 3 transgender adults are living in poverty.)
The changes, which eliminate independent fact-checking for a system similar to X’s “community notes,” have been highly critiqued by journalists and fact-checking organizations. Many experts see it as a “bow” to Trump.
Zuckerberg also noted that the platform would “remove restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are out of touch with mainstream discourse.” He directly linked the changes to the recent election.
Those changes happened quickly. That same day GLAAD, an LGBTQ media monitoring non-profit, reported the changes to the hateful conduct policies. Changes include allowances for calling LGBTQ people mentally ill and the removal of prohibitions against the dehumanization of protected groups, among many. Notably, Meta’s guidelines include the right-wing transphobic dog whistle “transgenderism.”
On Jan. 9, reporting from The Intercept and Platformer on internal training documents revealed the use of even more slurs. The t-slur against transgender people is now allowed on the sites with no restrictions. Phrases like—and this is a quoted example—”A trans person isn’t a he or she, it’s an it” are allowed on the sites with no restrictions.
Notably, the training manuals differentiate between different members of the LGBTQ community. For example, The Intercept found that the phrase “Lesbians are so stupid” would be prohibited while “trans people are mentally ill” would not be.
(These training manuals also include permissive use of racist and dehumanizing language for other marginalized groups.)
And then, as a cherry on top, Meta removed DEI programs and deleted the transgender and non-binary Messenger themes, on Jan. 10.
These changes are undeniably bad. Arturo Béjar, a former engineering director at Meta with expertise in online harassment, told the Associated Press, he is horrified by the changes.
“I shudder to think what these changes will mean for our youth, Meta is abdicating their responsibility to safety, and we won’t know the impact of these changes because Meta refuses to be transparent about the harms teenagers experience, and they go to extraordinary lengths to dilute or stop legislation that could help,” he said.
Fisher, who has researched the effects of hate speech online on LGBTQ youths’ mental health, agrees that the results will be devastating. “We had many people who said they observed transgender harassment for others or were actually attacked themselves,” said Fisher. “This prevents people from wanting to come out online and to actually engage in those kinds of online communities that might be helpful to them.”
What is happening also confirms LGBTQ youths’ worst fears. “We’ve found that a major concern is that there would be an increased violation of civil rights and increased violence against LGBTQ individuals,” she said.
Fisher, a psychologist, sees this as “putting us back into the dark ages of psychiatry and psychology when LGBTQ individuals were seen as having some kind of a mental health problem or disorder.”
Fisher emphasized: “This kind of misinformation about mental illness is certainly going to be putting transgender people, especially at even greater risk than they were before.”
(This story is part of the Digital Equity Local Voices Fellowship lab through News is Out. The lab initiative is made possible with support from Comcast NBCUniversal.)
State Department
Trump executive order bans passports with ‘X’ gender markers
President signed directive hours after he took office
A sweeping executive order that President Donald Trump issued on Monday bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers.
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June 2021 announced the State Department would begin to issue gender-neutral passports and documents for American citizens who were born overseas.
Dana Zzyym, an intersex U.S. Navy veteran who identifies as nonbinary, in 2015 filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department after it denied their application for a passport with an “X” gender marker. Zzyym in October 2021 received the first gender-neutral American passport.
The State Department policy took effect on April 11, 2022.
“The secretaries of State and Homeland Security, and the director of the Office of Personnel Management, shall implement changes to require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards, accurately reflect the holder’s sex,” reads Trump’s executive order.
The gender marker is among the provisions contained within Trump’s executive order titled “Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government.” Trump in his inaugural speech said the federal government’s “official policy” is “there are only two genders, male and female.”
The Washington Blade will have additional reporting on Trump’s executive orders and their impact on the LGBTQ community.
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