#queer scouting

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Happy Pride month!!

Since most of us are still stuck at home, and there’s not much scouting going on right now, I’ve decided to start up my Queer Scouting project again.

This year with a little twist!

Do you have photos of you taking part in a Pride event with scouting or guiding? Have you visited the Rainbow Cafe at a camp? Do you have many queer friends within scouting?

This time I want to hear about your best memories. I want to see your most colourful, rainbow filled photos. I want to hear about how much fun you have had.

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FLAGS active support unit (and Youth scouting members) marching at Hull Pride this morning (I didn’t march this year but i hope to next year)

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My Queer Scouting Story

If i’m going to do this project, it’s only fair that I tell you all my story. (This will come in video form too later on.)

I go by Phaona on here, which is my Cub Scout Leader name, and i’m a sectional assistant and Network Scout, as a member of The Scout Association. I only joined scouting as a 15 year old Explorer Scout, so I missed out on a lot of the traditional scouting things. First camps, badges, that kind of thing. We didn’t really do any of that in Explorers.

I didn’t realise I was different until I left Explorers when I turned 18. Even then I wasn’t sure whether I was queer or just a late developer, seen as I had been in literally every other aspect of my life. Or you know, maybe I was just wierd like everyone else thought. I had a boyfriend, and by this point we’d been together a couple of years, but I didn’t want to do anything with him. I thought something was wrong with me, and I was convinced that we wouldn’t last because I was making life difficult for him. 

But then, while I was at uni, I came across a post on Tumblr talking about Asexuality. It described not feeling sexual attraction, but that you might still feel romantic attraction. That was me! I know it’s just a word, and by all rights it shouldn’t be that important, but it felt so damn good to know that there were enough people in the world that felt the same as me that there was a word for it!

I came out to my friends at uni first. I may have been a ittle bit drunk, but hey, it got the job done. Something like 9 months later I finally came out to my boyfriend, and he was fine with it. Then I found out that there was a lesbian girl and a gay boy in our Explorer group (by this point I was an occassional helper), and honestly, it felt so good that I wasn’t alone. It still took a while longer for me to come out though. 

I forget how I came out, but I know it was to some of the Explorers first. Then it turned out one of my best friends in scouting was bi! After that my confidence grew and grew, and I ended up being out completely, except to my parents, who happen to be scout leaders at the same group…

I mean, it’s not that I don’t think they’d accept me, it’s more that I don’t think they’d understand what Asexuality is, and i’d rather not have to explain it and sit through their questioning. If they figured out that I wasn’t straight though, i’d happily tell them. But at the minute I don’t think it’s any of their business.

Now that the kids all know that i’m not straight, I often end up getting questions about it. Sometimes one particular kid will ask me about gender or what it’s like to actually feel sexual attraction, which I obviously can’t answer. So I tell him that. I explain that I just don’t know. I don’t have the experience. And if my parents show up, they all know to stop talking about it in case it makes things difficult for me. 

In the UK we have an SAS (scout active support) group for queer people, called FLAGS. I’m going to join it just as soon as I get time to sit there and fill in the ridiculously long form. Then I can join them on Pride parades and camps, and wear my Ace flag AND my necker with pride.

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Name: Lollie Association: Scouts Australia I don’t believe I really come out to my troop, I think just one day I said I had a girlfriend and everyone just kinda excepted I was queer. Then when it comes to people outside my troop for like region camps and Jamboree, I try to bring up how I have dated girls and people go ‘oh are you gay?’ And I just say yep.

My ID of genderfluid is more recent and has lead me to use Lollie as my preferred name. Once again I didn’t really ‘come out’, we have a facebook chat with all our ventures and the leaders and I changed my nickname on there to Lollie by habit of using that name online, then my leader asked if I preferred that name, and scene then my troop has been calling me Lollie. Which is like super cool of them and makes me feel really happy about myself.

I joined scouting when I was 12, and come out until I was 13. So it didn’t really change my experience in scouting. Really just most people have been pretty chill about it. But I feel I has affected other people who weren’t as aware of LBGT+ things and have become more educated on the subject now, which is also pretty cool

I would love to have a way for queer scouts having away way to connect with each other. And also get some education out there and in scouting to make sure all LGBT+ scouts always feel safe and included.

Finally, as some advice to not just LGBT+ scouts, but all scouts really. Scouts is huge full of so many different people, you’ll never know who you will meet. Some people may be good, respect you for who you are, or even relate to you. Others will be unkind about it and brake their scout promise. But keep putting yourself out there and try as many parts of scouting and your life as you can. Don’t let a few mean people ruin your fun.

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Name: Cedar, as far as the internet needs to know Orientation: Asexual Biromantic Country: Canada Organization: Scouts Canada Roles: Group Secretary, Troop Scouter, Venturer Advisor, Camp Registrar, Rover Advice for LGBT+ youth in scouting: This is a really hard one, since everyone’s situation will be different. Mainly, do what makes sense in your situation, and in your own time. You don’t owe anyone an explanation of your sexuality or gender; you are valid whether you’re in or out of the closet. 

My Story

I live in quite a small city where it’s a constant struggle to find enough scouters to do all the jobs that need doing, so at the moment I’m the Secretary of my group committee, and the lead scouter for both our Scout Troop and our Venturer Company. I’m also a rover, and the registrar for a large twice-yearly camp, because evidently I have a hard time saying no. Having that many roles isn’t unusual around here; most people who stay in scouting more than a year pick up at least two, usually more. I’ve been in Scouting since I was 12, but only really got serious about it when I joined Venturers at the age of 14. I’ve been a scouter since I turned 18, and a rover for the same amount of time. I’m currently 25.

Finding out I was asexual wasn’t really a difficult process for me; I more or less drifted through my teenage years not realizing that most people felt some kind of attraction I don’t. I went through the stage of “I don’t like guys the way I’m supposed to, maybe I’m a lesbian” at age 14, when one of my scouters told me not to get a haircut because “only lesbians have short hair”. By age 18 I had decided “well, I’m attracted to women as much as I am to men, even if that’s apparently not in the usual way, so maybe I’m bi”. It wasn’t until I was 20 I found out that sexual attraction was a thing for a lot of people, and that not feeling it means I’m asexual. I found out about the split attraction model, and that I could be romantically attracted to people without being sexually attracted to them, perhaps a month later.

I suppose I’m mostly out of the closet; I don’t try to hide my orientation, but I’ve also never told anyone I’m ace just for the sake of telling them. I do have an awesome “Scout and Proud” patch from the Scouts booth at Toronto Pride on my campfire blanket, and hope to get an Inclusive Scouting flash for my uniform. I’m out to most of my friends, including the other scouters in my sections, generally because we were discussing something where my own experiences were relevant to the topic. I’m also out to a couple of my older scouts who have talked to me about their own gender and sexual orientations. It seems to me that it takes a lot of courage to talk to someone about that kind of thing, especially if other people in your life aren’t accepting and you’ve been belittled for it before, and letting them know I’m queer is both a way of honouring their trust in me and a way of letting them know that I’m a safe person to confide this kind of thing to.

The only people I wouldn’t be comfortable being outed to are a few openly homophobic scouters in my city. I figure that if they don’t approve of gay people, they probably wouldn’t approve of me, and their positions in scouting make it politically inexpedient to make enemies of them. Luckily, there’s none so blind as those that won’t see, and none of them have ever questioned whether I’m something other than straight. I suppose that’s the only way that being queer has really impacted my scouting experience. It does bother me that people with hateful opinions and prejudices have the potential to be in a position of trust with the youth, but I’m also aware that at least one of our city’s three scout groups would collapse without their support, so I can understand why no-one does anything about it beyond occasionally calling them out on their homophobia.