Hegseth deceptively suggests that Scouting America has banned trans youth. Here’s the truth.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued a deceptive and disingenuous statement Friday to make it appear that Scouting America — formerly known as the Boy Scouts of America — had agreed to ban transgender teens.

He didn’t exactly lie. What he said was cuter than I thought he was capable of. But he did manage to produced content for Fox News in order to advance his hateful campaign against the LGBTQ community. Here’s the relevant section of Hegseth’s statement regarding trans youth, as reported by Alex Nitzberg of Fox News:

Scouting America will modify its policy to make clear that membership will be based solely on biological sex at birth and not gender identity,” he said.

“That means that the application, any application, will have only two sex designations, male and female, and the application must match the applicant’s birth certificate. Scouting will also make clear that biological boys and girls will not be allowed to occupy or share intimate spaces together. Toilets, showers, tents, anywhere like that.

Sounds like a ban, doesn’t it? Not so fast. Because, according to Ben Finley and Jamie Stengle of The Associated Press, Scouting America hasn’t made any changes at all with regard to trans members.

The AP’s story quoted Scouting America’s CEO, Roger Krone, as saying, “We have transgender people in our program we’ll have transgender people in our program going forward.” The article continues:

Hegseth said in a video posted on X that Scouting America’s applications will list only options for male and female and the one checked must match the applicant’s birth certificate. He didn’t say how that would be enforced. The group would clarify that youths of opposite genders assigned at birth cannot share bathrooms, tents or other similar spaces, he said.

Krone said the group’s application already has only two boxes — one for boy and one for girl — and that they were already asking about sex assigned at birth. He didn’t offer clarity on how that was reviewed or enforced.

“We do not put boys and girls together in intimate spaces and in order to do that we need to have some knowledge of who they are,” he said.

Hegseth laid out five steps that Scouting America had agreed to in order to maintain its longstanding relationship with the Defense Department, including the use of military bases for events such as its national jamboree. In a statement, Krone strikes an unfortunately obsequious tone, referring to the Defense Department as the “Department of War,” the Trump regime’s preferred designation.

The organization has also agreed to end its Citizenship in Society merit badge, which stresses “the benefits of diversity, equity, inclusion, and ethical leadership.” According to Hegseth, a military service merit badge will be introduced, though Krone’s statement makes no mention of that. Krone’s statement, though, also includes this: “Scouting’s values have not changed, and they will not change.”

Hegseth has been on a demented crusade against Scouting America, accusing the organization of adopting “radical, woke ideology.” He also says a review will be conducted after six months.

I’m proud to be associated with scouting. I’m an Eagle scout and a former adult leader, and my son is an Eagle scout. My father was a scout leader as well. As you no doubt know, issues regarding gender and sex abuse have roiled the organization for years. When I was a scout leader in the 1990s, the minister of the Congregational church that chartered our troop told us he his members were uneasy with the Boy Scouts of America’s then-ban on gay scouts. We told him that we would not discriminate against a boy who wished to become a scout, and that we were willing to suffer the consequences. I’m sure a lot of troops in liberal parts of the country took the same unofficial stance.

The former BSA morphed into Scouting America because of the fallout over its longstanding, serious issue around sexual abuse. The organization settled more than 250 lawsuits for $150 million between 2017 and 2019, then filed for bankrupty in 2020, setting aside $2.46 billion to settle the remaining suits. A small group of victims — 144 out of 82,000 — refused to agree to the terms of the settlement and took its case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 2025 declined to hear those victims’ appeal.

Scouting’s history with sexual abuse led to significant reforms in the organization’s internal culture. In 2015, the BSA announced that it would stop discriminating against LGBTQ employees and boys, although it still allowed chartering organizations to discriminate at the troop level. That was a significant loophole given that many troops are chartered by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Catholic Church.

In 2017, the BSA began admitting transgender youth who identified as boys. The Human Rights Campaign, which works for the rights of the LGBTQ community, described the policy like this:

The former policy only allowed boys to join the Boy Scouts who were listed as male on their birth certificate, while the new policy will admit any boy to the organization whose parents list their gender as male on their application. This marks a significant policy shift, and will allow transgender boys whose parents cannot change or have not changed their son’s gender on their birth certificate.

That’s the policy that remains in effect to this day, despite what Hegseth wants you to believe.

In 2019, the BSA began admitting girls to all of its programs, which is what eventually led to the name change to Scouting America. When I’ve attended scouting events in recent years, I’ve been struck by how many girls have joined the program.

Although my participation in Scouting America these days is minimal, I admire the folks who give their time to this important program. And I’m grateful that the national leaders made a belated move to made amends with victims of sexual abuse and to offer a full welcome to LGBTQ leaders and scouts.

I wish the organization had stood up to Hegseth more forthrightly on Friday, but at least it didn’t back down on trans issues. I just hope it stands by Roger Krone’s promise: “Scouting’s values have not changed, and they will not change.”

A scout is trustworthy.