Girls are in at Boy Scouts of America: How it's going after 3 years

Rain crashed down and thunder roared for hours on a recent Saturday morning, but that didn't stop Scout Troop 1402.

Of course, their meticulously drawn-out plan for the day had to be tossed aside in favor of hiding in a musty cabin near their campsite at the D Bar A Scout Ranch, but they rolled with the punches.

And when the clouds parted, they returned to their tents and started lunch. One patrol group made "hobo pies," a campout classic made up of bottled marinara and shredded mozzarella, sandwiched inside two slices of white bread, toasted over the fire.

The other patrol group went in a different direction, opting for teriyaki chicken lettuce wraps.

They cleaned up and then trekked down a muddy path to play capture the flag.

It's like any other Boy Scouts of America camping trip — but this time, there are girls.

Some girls in the program haven't thought twice about how their gender is the minority in the organization. Others feel like they faced more barriers to getting their Eagle Scout rank.

"In the beginning, I wasn't (nervous) because I wasn't so aware of all the stigma (around allowing girls)," said Waincey Chan, one of the first girls in Michigan to get her Eagle Scout. "I just never realized that was such a problem ... after I'd been in there for a little bit, probably a few days, I realized that there were a lot of people who weren't happy with girls joining Scouts."

Girls are in

In 2019, BSA announced girls were allowed to join. The organization changed its name from Boy Scouts to Scouts BSA.

BSA was already serving girls through other programs, so the inclusion of young women in Scouts makes it easier and more convenient for parents juggling different extracurriculars, said Christopher Hopkins, chief information officer for the Michigan Crossroads Council.

There were a few vocal unhappy campers — including the Girl Scouts president, who accused BSA of welcoming girls to help its diminished enrollment numbers, CNN reported. Others complained the organization only changed it to be "politically correct."

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The 2019 decision was just the latest attempt from BSA to toss aside its exclusive policies. In 2013, the organization lifted the ban on openly gay scouts and in 2015, it ended the prohibition on gay leaders.

And, although the name changed to Scouts BSA, "boy" is still in it.

"There are females in there now too, so to just label it as boys makes it seem like the females in the same program are not seen as equals compared to the boys," Chan said.

Hopkins said it's just because the organization itself is called BSA.

A few rules still limit the interactions between boys and girls. For example, boys' and girls' tents have to be separated.

Similarly, when potential scouts search for troops in their area, there are two options: "Boys Troop" and "Girls Troop."

It is unclear how transgender, nonbinary or queer people fit in.

'Come on guys ... and girl'

For Troop 1402, primarily based in Fraser, adding girls was a no-brainer, said Lisa Ludwig, mom to a daughter in the troop and a son who just got his Eagle.

"We started with three girls who were siblings of our current boys," Ludwig, the troop's committee chair, said. "There was a lot of like, 'how is this going to work? How is this going to function?' ... But once we got in and physically started dealing with it, for the most part, it just works. And sure, sometimes there are conflicts about them being boys and girls and things that occur, but there are sometimes conflicts between two boys, right? They’re teenagers.”

For the most part, Ludwig said, she doesn't see much of a distinction between the boys and girls.

Scout troops still aren't coed, Ludwig said. There are two groups, one for boys and another for girls, they just function as one large troop.

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She estimated there are only four troops in southern Macomb County that include girls.

Her daughter, Uma, is a 14-year-old senior patrol leader.

For Uma, planning the menu and remembering to buy all the ingredients for a camping trip is significantly more stressful than being one of three girls on the 15-person trip.

"(Being one of the only girls) was never an issue, my issue was being scared I was going to be behind everyone," she said. "I love when people are like, 'come on guys....and girl.' "

Before lunch, Uma and Andrew Tiza, 17, patiently showed Violet and Simon Osantowske how to clean and prepare the camping griddles.

The Osantowske twins, both 11, were on their first-ever camping trip as scouts. Violet, like Uma, was treated like any other member of the group and was too preoccupied with trying to help a wounded frog to consider much else.

Uma is one of a few people who have been in both Girl Scouts and Scouts BSA, giving her a unique perspective. She said she has learned valuable things from both, but the two organizations are completely different.

"I've done Girl Scouts since I was in kindergarten, and it still was never the same as when my brother did Cub Scouts," she said. "Girl Scouts is more about girl empowerment. And saying, 'you can do it because you're a girl,' but Boy Scouts is more about (learning) skills because they're just skills that everyone needs in life, like I need first aid as much as the next person does."

Trailblazer

Chan had always wanted to join the Scouts — she grew up watching her brother go through the program, tagging along when she could.

"I remember asking my mom when I was younger 'can I do this too?' She was like, 'well, you won't get the badge for it.' and I was like, 'why not? I'm still doing it.' And it was because I'm not a male and I remember thinking ‘that’s dumb.’ ”

Chan, now 18 and done with her freshman year of college, was part of the inaugural class of girls who could become Eagle Scouts. The only catch was, she only had two and a half years to finish all the requirements.

Along the way, she observed that her work was scrutinized more than her male counterparts.

"The parents talk and so I'd overhear their comments sometimes and there have been men who have treated me a little more unfairly," Chan said. "The process of me going Eagle was a little harder and more watched, like everything was more strict."

She said some boys would keep inconsistent records of what they had been doing, and throw them away once they had gotten each merit badge. For Chan, it was different. She said she had to meticulously track all of her paperwork, even after a task had been completed and approved

"I had to keep track of all my paperwork packets, all my merit badge packets, all my cards, I had to remember where everything was because they would come back and question me about it," she said.

At first, Chan didn't think anything of joining. She just wanted to learn the skills and have fun. She soon realized she had to be a leader, a trailblazer.

"The scouts claim they're such a welcoming program with the girls, and then feeling all of this backlash and like judgmentalness was definitely not welcoming," she said. "And so I realized I had to be the trailblazer, I have to lay this down, so they know it can be done, girls can do it."

And sure enough, she did it.

Despite the obstacles she had to overcome, she wishes more girls would take the leap and sign up.

"I was just able to learn so much and do things that I normally would never be able to do otherwise, and the relationships I made, those are going to be things that I'm going to be keeping for the rest of my life," Chan said. "I just want to tell girls that they can work for anything they want and they can do it, they can do it better than the boys can."

Contact Emma Stein: estein@freepress.com and follow her on Twitter @_emmastein.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Girls are in at Boy Scouts of America: How it's going after 3 years