Boy Scouts drops gender from name in first rebrand in 114 years

The Boy Scouts of America has changed its name for the first time in its 114-year history as part of an inclusivity drive.

The group will now be known as Scouting America, it announced.

Roger Krone, who took over last fall as president and chief executive, said: “In the next 100 years we want any youth in America to feel very, very welcome to come into our programs.”

With an eye on increasing flagging membership numbers, the Texas-based scouting group announced it was omitting gender from its name at its annual meeting in Florida.

The organisation began allowing gay youth in 2013 and ended a blanket ban on gay adult leaders in 2015. In 2017, it made the announcement that girls would be accepted as Cub Scouts and into the flagship Boy Scout program — renamed Scouts BSA.

Decline in membership

Like other similar groups, the Scouts lost members during the pandemic. After a highpoint over the last decade of 2 million members in 2018, its current membership is just over 1 million, including more than 176,000 girls and young women. Membership peaked in 1972 at almost 5 million.

The move by the Boy Scouts to accept girls strained a bond with the Girl Scouts of the USA, which sued, saying it created marketplace confusion and damaged recruitment efforts. They reached a settlement agreement after a judge rejected those claims, saying both groups were free to use words like “scouts” and “scouting.”

The Boy Scouts’ $2.4 billion bankruptcy reorganisation plan took effect last year, allowing it to keep operating while compensating the more than 80,000 men who say they were sexually abused as children while scouting.

Angelique Minett, the first female chairman of Scouts BSA, said she is excited about the future of scouting when she sees the youth council from across the United States help guide the program by raising issues important to them, like sustainability.

The organisation won’t officially become Scouting America until Feb 8, 2025, its 115th birthday. But Mr Krone said he expected people would start immediately using the name.