Girl Scouts group to discuss transgender policy

Amid a recent conservative attack on a Girl Scouts of America policy welcoming transgender children, the Girl Scouts of Kentuckiana said Thursday it plans to discuss the issue next week at a board meeting.

Jackie Ford, the group's chief executive officer, said while she is not aware of any transgender child who has sought to join a local troop, national attention spurred the board to review the issue next Tuesday. It's not clear if any action may be taken.

"We are an inclusive organization," she said, a group that represents about 14,000 girl scouts in 64 counties in Kentucky and Southern Indiana.

Also Thursday, the president of the Boy Scouts of America, former CIA director Robert Gates, made headlines at the group's annual meeting by saying the policy of barring gay adult leaders "cannot be sustained" and urging its governing body to take up the issue.

The group in 2013 allowed gay youth to participate.

"It's absolutely encouraging," said Louisville resident Greg Bourke, who was forced out as a Boy Scout leader in 2012 because he is openly gay, but was allowed to continue on as a Girl Scout leader. "The whole gender issue has exploded in the last couple of years."

Chris Hartman, director of Louisville's Fairness Campaign, a gay, lesbian and transgender rights group, said participation of transgender children in Girl Scouts hadn't come up to his knowledge in Kentucky but Girl Scouts had long been more inclusive than Boy Scouts.

In 2012, critics protested after a transgender child was accepted in a Colorado Girl Scout troop. Girl Scouts of America currently has guidance on transgender youths on its website, which officials said has existed for several years.

It says placement of transgender youths is handled "on a case-by-case basis, with the welfare and best interests of the child and the members of the troop/group in question a top priority. That said, if the child is recognized by the family and school/community as a girl and lives culturally as a girl, then Girl Scouts is an organization that can serve her in a setting that is both emotionally and physically safe."

Susan Douglas, CEO of the Girl Scouts of Kentucky's Wilderness Road Council, which represents 12,000 scouts in 57 counties including much of Eastern Kentucky, said her group hasn't had to use the guidance but said Girl Scouts value "diversity and inclusiveness."

"We don't discriminate," she said.

Although it's not clear what spurred it, the Mississippi-based American Family Association gathered more than 38,500 signatures since May 13 urging the Girl Scouts to rescind its policy, which it viewed as new.

"The Girl Scouts of America has lost its moral compass," the group wrote on its website. "Boys in skirts, boys in make-up and boys in tents will become a part of the program" and "put young innocent girls at risk."

The Southern Poverty Law Center lists the AFA as an extremist group.

Martin Cothran, a senior analyst for the conservative Family Foundation of Kentucky, said his group hasn't pushed state Girl Scout leaders for changes but said he thinks the Girl Scouts should stick to "common sense" definitions of gender.

Bourke said be believes many within Girl Scouts weren't aware of the transgender guidance simply because it hadn't come up. Hartman said he hopes the publicity helps brings more diversity to scouting.

Reporter Chris Kenning can be reached at (502) 582-4697. Follow him on Twitter at @ckenning_cj.