8 year old trans boy banned from Cub Scouts because ‘parents complained’
An 8-year-old boy has been banned from the US Cub Scouts because he is transgender.
Joe Maldonado, 8, had joined his local Scouts group about a month ago.
According to his mother, his transgender status was no secret when he joined.
However after a month of participating in the kids’ club he has been told not to return.
An official from the Northern New Jersey Council Boy Scout informed Kristie Maldonado, the boy’s mother, that her son wasn’t welcome back.
“Not one of the kids said, “You don’t belong here,’” Maldonado told USA Today.
“It made me mad,” her son, Joe, said.
“I had a sad face, but I wasn’t crying.
“I’m way more angry than sad. My identity is a boy.
“If I was them, I would let every person in the world go in.
“It’s right to do.”
The news came as a shock, as the boy is accepted and recognised as a boy at school.
Mrs Maldonado had been asked to prove her son was a boy in a phone call from the group.
Parents of other children in the group had complained that there was a trans child in the class.
Following the complaints Scout officials took the decision to ban the child.
Asked for comment on their official policy, the Scouting Association refused to explain their position for trans children.
The organisation is said to have no formal stance on trans children at this stage.
Effie Delimarkos, communications director for the Boy Scouts of America, said in a statement that the organisation’s Cub Scouts programs are for boys between the ages of 7 and 10.
She added that “the classification on the participant’s birth certificate” would be used to “confirm legal status.”
