When Scouts are sold trans fun badges, what hope for common sense?

SCOuTIng is about much more than just tying knots and hammering in tent pegs. It’s the biggest mixed- youth movement in Britain, with dedicated volunteers who teach children resilience and self-confidence.

But it is being placed at risk by inappropriate teachings around transgender ideology.

As the Mail reported at the weekend, children as young as four are being offered badges celebrating sexual identities and ideas about gender — including a trans fun badge, a lesbian fun badge, a bisexual fun badge and a Pride fun badge.

Anxious

In promotional material, the Scout Association urges its members to ‘celebrate inclusion’ and ‘to support the LgBT+ community’.

It is absolutely right that Scouts should be open and inclusive to all children from all families, whether single-parent households or samesex parents or anything else. Some youngsters will have gay or trans siblings, and Scout leaders should be aware of this.

But these badges are linked to activities overseen by leaders who will have had no training in relationship and sex education (RSE), or who might be confused and anxious about what they are meant to be telling the youth. I worry that some children could even be placed at risk of sexual abuse if it becomes acceptable for adults other than their parents or teachers to ask them their feelings about sex and about their bodies.

At the same time, well-meaning adults might lay themselves open to allegations that destroy their professional and personal lives.

I fear, too, that this initiative strays into promoting to children too young to understand the idea that people can be ‘ born in the wrong body’ and choose a gender.

Of course, such issues should be discussed with youngsters when the time is right and in an appropriate environment.

In schools, RSE is delivered by teachers trained to do so under government guidance which recommends schools work closely with parents. Scout leaders, however, are volunteers, and their training is much less structured.

When I raised these fears in my online blog at the weekend, furious trans activists tried to shout me down, accusing me of homophobic and transphobic bigotry.

I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve spoken out on related matters before — and paid the price.

In 2012, I took on the role of assistant Cub Scout leader at a local group in Hertfordshire. Six years later, I became increasingly concerned about the Scout Association’s policy towards transgender volunteers, and raised my fears about safeguarding.

Berated

It seemed wrong to me — and it still does — that a male-bodied Scout leader of 40 who identified as female was able to use the women’s showers and changing rooms on Scout premises.

If women were in there at the time, they had no right to challenge that leader. In 2018, I wrote about the Association’s transgender policy in an article published by the organisation Transgender Trend, which promotes ‘evidence-based care of gender-dysphoric children’.

When I raised it as a topic of discussion on a Scout leaders’ forum on Facebook, I and other female leaders who shared my anxiety were called ‘bigots’, ‘scum’, ‘hateful’ and ‘transphobes’.

Trans activists said I was vile and told me I was unfit to be a Scout leader. They dismissed Transgender Trend — whose founder, Stephanie Davies-Arai, was recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for her service to children — as a ‘hate group’.

When I contacted the Scout Association about this, it brushed off my concerns. In fact, it berated

me for writing about them. Things quickly escalated after someone from the Facebook forum reported me for transphobia and I found myself under investigation by the Scout movement.

It took nearly two years — after several reports I had to challenge — to receive a formal apology for what I was put through. I left the Scouts.

It did update its guidance after this controversy, but there are still real problems. For example, leaders are now told that ‘trans young people should be able to use the toilets or facilities of the gender they identify as’, and that parents should not be informed unless the youngster gives consent.

I am truly fearful that the Scout Association, at both national and local level, is becoming so intimidated by a minority of aggressive bullies in the trans movement that its members will be terrified to speak at all, lest they say the wrong thing. Clearly, no one dared point out — initially, at least — one obvious problem with the new badges unveiled last week: their naming is unfortunate, to say the least.

Did it not occur to anyone that many parents would be aghast if their child of 11 came home and announced they had a bisexual fun badge or lesbian fun badge?

The double meaning is unintentional and misleading. ‘Fun’ badges, on sale at £1.50 or handed out by leaders, are collected and swapped by Scouts and signify communal interests and events, such as camps and jamborees. They might be used to decorate a camping blanket or rucksack, for example.

They are different from the ‘activity’ badges Scouts earn by learning new skills and which they wear on their uniforms.

Some of these badges do make for good talking points between adults and the youth. For instance, the safer internet fun badge is ideal for starting a conversation about online dangers.

In the past 48 hours, the Scout Association does seem to have recognised the problem. The ‘ fun’ reference has been dropped, so the badges are now simply described as ‘trans woven badge’ or ‘Pride woven badge’ on its website.

That aside, I do not believe it is ever appropriate for adults without training to initiate a chat with children about complex sexual issues, or to raise the idea that some people feel they are born in the wrong body.

Guidance from the Scouts head office points leaders to online resources for transgender issues, such as a series of videos by Pop’n’Olly, aimed at pre-teens. I believe these preach the most contentious trans ideology. Olly Pike and his cartoon balloon Pop tell children they are assigned a gender at birth and everyone is able to ‘choose’ what gender to be.

THEScout Association has had to learn traumatic lessons about keeping children safe. A small number of adults with evil intentions have targeted the movement in the past, infiltrating it to commit physical and sexual abuse.

We must never forget those lessons — nor turn a blind eye when those who are politically and/or ideologically motivated are, as one critic of the new badges said, ‘asking children to be “allies” to what is essentially an adult political movement’.

When it comes to sex education, it needs to be done with the best possible content, which has been thoroughly vetted. This should happen in schools, with well-trained teachers — not at Scout camps where children may be away from home for the firsttime and facing lots of new experiences at once.

But if the Scout Association keeps burying its head in the sand on this issue, I fear for the survival of Scouting. We must not be bullied into holding our tongues.

■ MAYA FORSTATER is a campaigner and co-founder of Sex Matters, which advocates for clarity about sex in laws, policies and language.