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Comment by hyperrail | Hacker News Reader

In many English-speaking countries other than the US (including Canada and UK), the Girl Scouts are actually called Girl Guides - and thus both the (Boy) Scouts and (Girl) Guides could theoretically admit both sexes without name conflicts or confusing names by simply dropping the references to boys and girls in their names.

For example, the British Boy Scouts organization is simply the "Scout Association" and has admitted girls under that name since the 1970s, though the British Girl Scouts organization is "Girlguiding" and is still for girls only.

Perhaps we Americans could rename the Boy Scouts and/or Girl Scouts to have a similar distinction as a way to smooth over this dispute.

(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scouting and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_Guides )

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They specifically chose the name "Scouts BSA" because changing the name from "Boy Scouts of America" would effectively require an act of congress. BSA were given a special legal status WAY beyond what normal copyright law allows, and so a "simple" name change becomes not so "simple" after all, unfortunately.

In fact, this copyright law is so powerful, during the court case Wrenn v. BSA from 2008, in which the court flat out said:

"BSA need not demonstrate the likelihood of confusion because it has been granted special protection by Congressional charter"

(link to law: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/36/30905)

Point of Clarification: The program name where youth can earn Eagle is now called Scouts BSA, the organization name still remains Boy Scouts of America.

The Boy Scouts of America has allowed girls in their other programs since the 1970s.

Crew and Sea Scouts are thin on the ground, and not available to most kids unlike cub scouts or boy scouts.

IMO the BSA has scared off competent leadership from the local troops, digging the graves of the plethora of troops that have folded. There are a handful of high caliber troops out there today, but most do not have the organizational capability to do the best job possible for our youth.

I speak from the perspective of a gay former patrol leader and life scout, my troop was great and gave me skills I couldn't get anywhere else at that age.

I was (apparently) a positive influence on many of the kids that were in my patrol, but none of the troops in my region besides the one I spent half a decade in has been able to field a coherent presence at Camporee or any of the summer camps. These kids are missing out on opportunities to learn valuble life skills that the local troops used to readily teach.

> The Boy Scouts of America has allowed girls in their other programs since the 1970s.

Only one (Exploring, which became Venturing), really. BSA has four youth programs:

Cub Scouts - for boys and girls from kindergarten through fifth grade. Girls were allowed to join the Cut Scouts program as of October 2017.

Scouting (formerly Boy Scouts) for young men 11 to 18. Young women will be able to join in February 2019.

Venturing - for young men and women ages 14 to 21. Young women were allowed to join starting in 1969. (Venturing was "Exploring" then, and Exploring / "Senior Scouts" started in the 1930s for boys 15 and older.

Sea Scouting - for young men and women ages 14 to 21. Previous to 2016, Sea Scouting was part of Venturing, and previous to that, part of Exploring.

In Australia, it's also just the Scout Association. I was a Cub Scout, Scout, Venturer and Rover (all the age brackets), and we had girls involved every step of the way. In fact it used to come up quite often in discussion about how stupid it was that its still called 'Boy scouts' in America.

Also it came up in discussion frequently that the Guides were rubbish, lol.

As a Canadian, my wife and I can concur. My wife hated girl guides.. calling them glorified 1950's housewives in training. They learned to knit and sew and babysit cubs and sell cookies. Camping and swimming weren't even options.

Scouts treated her like an equal and she went camping and adventuring. And we always had girls in our troops. We were just Scouts.. the silly 'Boy' bit the Americans use was never there.

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