Starting from the bottom as a Daisy, and then a Brownie, and then a Girl Scout — these all seemed normal to me. All of my friends were in my Girl Scout troop, and I never would have understood at the time if a girl my age was rejected from joining just because she was transgender.

The same experience would probably be true for most young people involved with the Boy Scouts of America. And now, an organization that is used to bringing together young boys, giving them life skills and helping them find new friendships has made a move to make sure that nobody is excluded. The Boy Scouts has officially began to accept transgender people into its scouting groups as of January 30th.

For your application for Boy Scouts, you used to have to be marked as “male” on your birth certificate to be admitted. Now, you just have be marked as “male” on your application to be admitted to a troop.

This change for Boy Scouts of America is a step towards fully accepting and affirming the LGBTQ community nationwide.

The transgender community shouldn’t be discriminated against, especially from a group focused on helping children, which should be welcoming all kinds of people, no matter their race, background, or sexuality.

This change for Boy Scouts should have happened before there was a need for a lawsuit to be filed in New Jersey on behalf of an 8 year old transgender boy who got kicked out of his Cub Scout troop last year.

According to NBC News, even though Joe Maldonado’s mother made it clear to the local troop that her son was transgender, they still rejected him because on his birth certificate, it read that he was female. However, to their credit, the organization has since shifted their stance, matching a similar move made recently by the Girl Scouts.

Discrimination is a constant topic in today’s society and is frowned upon by most people, but the reality is that we still have limitations for specific groups of people.

This is just another step towards having a more inclusive community. Society needs to be accepting of any and all persons because these transgender children can’t change who they are.

Finding out that a classmate was transgender wouldn’t make me change my actions or feelings towards them, and this should be the case for all people.

Every individual is different, but we’re also the same. Everyone deserves the same rights, and to not be discriminated against by how we identify, because we are who we are.  

Creative commons photo source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jdhancock/3163675297/