Order MORE Girl Scout cookies

I've seen mention her and there of some campaign that started this week, trying to get people to boycott Girl Scout cookie orders this year.  I personally really love Girl Scout cookies, but I'm cynical enough that I'm prepared for any national organization to do something terrible, so I was worried that the Girl Scouts might break my heart.  I finally clicked on a link to find out what was up.

For those of you who don't know, a 14-year-old Girl Scout from California is in a video explaining that we should boycott Girl Scout cookies because the organization has accepted a seven-year-old transgender girl into a troop in Colorado.

And when I heard that news, my heart leapt!  The Girl Scouts was already my go-to organization.  I was grateful that Maybelle wasn't a boy so that Biffle and I wouldn't have to have a fight over the Boy Scouts, an organization that many individuals beloved to us have taken part in, but an organization that's so blatantly and unapologetically homophobic that I really really wouldn't want our child to be a Boy Scout.

Girl Scouts, however, have never been homophobic, so I was all ready for Maybelle to become a Brownie when she's kindergarten age.  And now I learn the news that the Girl Scouts admit anybody who identifies as a girl, including people like the kid in Colorado who was identified as a boy at birth but who now identifies as a girl.  This is fantastic!

Official quote from the Girl Scouts:  “Girl Scouts is an inclusive organization and we accept all girls in Kindergarten through 12th grade as members.  If a child identifies as a girl and the child's family presents her as a girl, Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout.”

Right on.

The kid who's critiquing the organization (her video has now been made private, so I'm relying out outside sources here) says, "Girl Scouts describes itself as an all-girl experience."  And I would respond, it's still an all-girl experience!  What exactly does it mean to be a girl?  Does it mean that they're going to perform a vagina and uterus check on all applicants?  That anybody without the right ratio of estrogen and progesterone isn't going to be allowed?  That only people who wear dresses and have long hair can take part?  What it means to be a girl is to identify as a girl.  That's it.

The boycott video continues, "With that label [Girl Scouts], families trust that the girls will be in an environment that is not only nurturing and sensitive to girls' needs, but also safe for girls."  So she's playing on the fear that boys--or just transgender individuals?--are sexual predators.  Can we all take a step back here and recognize that the person who's most vulnerable in the Girl Scout troop is the seven year old person who's transgender?

If the Girl Scout organization is willing to help provide a supportive, nurturing community for that child and the other children who take part, then it's an organization with a meaningful commitment to human diversity.  Which means I am buying extra Girl Scout cookies this year.  Do the same!  My god, the Tagalongs and Samoas are so good anyway.  And now you can feel ideologically happy eating them, too!