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Preface
I was an Eagle Scout, earning the honor at 13. It was the highlight of my young life, and though I was juvenile, I was all-in on Scouting male self-improvement. From this foundation, I developed an interest in camping, rock climbing, and athletics, and eventually spent a month at the North Carolina Outward Bound. This is another outdoor adventure program for older kids that has methods and an original philosophy similar to that of the Boy Scouts.
I also attended a coed winter camping ski trek in Wyoming’s Wind River wilderness with a similar group, National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). Its motto was, “to elevate the leader in everyone.” I vividly recall being sent off into sub-zero conditions by its rabidly enthusiastic founder, Paul Petzoldt.
On that trip, I shared a tent with a girl who made it clear that she liked me. Since I was too shy to reciprocate (true), she paid me back by slipping a pair of panties into my luggage for my girlfriend at home to scream about later. Drama like this was never seen in the original Outward Bound, which was designed to foster male strengths and bonding.
Scouting has been eviscerated by the forces I will describe in this essay, a sad state of affairs that brings tears to my eyes. Our young men now have to search for male mentorship where they can, rather than through wonderful groups like these.
Summary
• The Boy Scouts of America, founded in 1910, developed methods to cultivate masculine virtues in boys through outdoor challenges, male mentorship, and a code of honor that emphasized self-reliance, courage, and service to others.
• Between 2013 and 2025, the organization underwent a series of policy changes that systematically eliminated its male-focused mission, culminating in dropping the word “boy” from its name entirely.
• The changes followed a pattern: first, openly accepting gay scouts (2013); then gay adult leaders (2015); then transgender boys (2017); then girls (2019); and finally, rebranding as “Scouting America” (2024).
• Outward Bound, founded in 1941 by German educator Kurt Hahn to develop character through outdoor challenge, has followed a similar trajectory, now offering “LGBTQ”-specific programs and promoting “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives.
• The destruction of these male-development organizations reflects broader cultural forces that pathologize traditional masculinity and deny that boys and girls have different developmental needs.
• Trail Life USA and similar Christian scouting organizations have emerged as alternatives, growing rapidly as families seek programs that still affirm masculine identity and male mentorship.
The rise and fall of Scouting
British war veteran Robert Baden-Powell was an aristocrat at a time when the term was still associated with virtue. He observed that industrial society was failing to prepare boys for manhood, so he brought his vision for male development to America. Young males who once learned strength, self-reliance, and resourcefulness from farming and manual labor were spending their days in schools and their evenings on city streets. Baden-Powell had witnessed firsthand during the Siege of Mafeking in South Africa that boys could rise to extraordinary challenges when given proper guidance and opportunity, and he created scouting to fill the modern void.*
By the end of its first decade, hundreds of thousands of American boys had enlisted in the Boy Scouts. The appeal was straightforward: boys craved adventure, physical challenge, and the company of other males. They wanted to test themselves against nature and against their own limitations. The Boy Scouts provided a framework for these natural drives, channeling boyish energy toward constructive ends.
Boys organized themselves into small groups called patrols, led by older boys who had demonstrated competence and character. Adult male leaders served as guides and mentors, while allowing the boys substantial autonomy in planning and executing their activities. The Scout Oath required participants to be “morally straight” and to do their “duty to God,” while the Scout Law outlined 12 points of character: trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.
These virtues reflected what society understood as essential to masculine character. Theodore Roosevelt, who served as Chief Scout Citizen, reminded the Scouts in 1915 that “manliness in its most rigorous form can be and ought to be accompanied by unselfish consideration for the rights and interests of others.” Baden-Powell himself wrote that the Scout must ask, when forced to choose between two courses of action: “Which is my duty? That is, which is best for other people?”
*My editor, KEC, comments, Baden-Powell later collaborated with his sister to create the Girl Scouts. The group was never distorted by the forces that destroyed the Boy Scouts. They have never been asked to give up the word “girl” or to accept boys. The organization continues to restrict membership to females and to promote an “I got this” attitude of female empowerment. No major cultural figures have called this exclusion problematic; the pressure flows in only one direction. But the Girl Scouts, as an organization, was itself eviscerated when the Scouts opened to girls. The cool physical girls left and joined the boys’ group.
Methods that built men
The program combined outdoor skills, physical challenges, and a moral framework that boys could grasp and apply. Camping trips taught practical competence. Learning to build a fire, pitch a tent, or navigate with a map and compass gave boys confidence in their abilities. These were concrete accomplishments that a boy could point to as proof of his growing capability.
Yoho: I coached my son and daughter twins on changing a tire when they were six, and they were able to do it independently with just a little muscle help. Twelve years later, while attending the elite Brown University, they were the only ones in a group of six who could do it when they had a flat on a road trip.
The organization grasped that boys learn best from other males. Scoutmasters modeled masculine virtue through their actions. They showed boys that strength could be gentle, that authority could be earned rather than imposed, and that men could be both tough and kind. The patrol system allowed older boys to mentor younger ones, creating a natural hierarchy based on competence and character rather than arbitrary authority.
Boys progressed through the ranks by mastering specific skills and demonstrating character. The Eagle Scout award stood as the pinnacle achievement, requiring years of sustained effort, leadership of a significant service project, and mastery of dozens of merit badges. Earning Eagle Scout meant something because it was difficult. Employers and college admissions officers recognized the award as a reliable indicator of character and capability.
Boys tested themselves on mountain trails, in whitewater rapids, and on rock faces. They learned that fear could be managed and overcome. They discovered that their bodies were capable of more than they had imagined. They found that pushing through discomfort and fatigue built both physical and mental strength. These lessons came not from lectures but from direct experience.
The program cultivated civic masculinity. Service projects taught boys to use their strength for the benefit of others. The Daily Good Turn made helping others a habit. The emphasis on duty to country and community gave boys a sense that they were part of something larger than themselves. It was masculinity oriented toward building and protecting rather than dominating.
A parallel vision: Outward Bound
Three decades after the founding of the Boy Scouts, another educator had similar concerns about youth development. Kurt Hahn, a German-born man who fled Nazi persecution in 1933, believed that modern society was producing six specific declines in young people: decline of fitness due to modern methods of locomotion, decline of initiative and enterprise due to spectatoritis,* decline of memory and imagination due to the confused restlessness of modern life, decline of skill and care due to the weakened tradition of craftsmanship, decline of self-discipline due to the availability of stimulants and tranquilizers, and decline of compassion due to the unseemly haste with which modern life is conducted.
*KEC, again: “Watching top athletes while being encouraged to gulp down garbage is a bizarre juxtaposition. Cultural Marxists derided our culture for such things as spectator sports, as they removed men from truly living. It is both true and applies to all humanity. I think the communists do/did the same thing with public executions.”
In 1941, Hahn partnered with British shipping magnate Sir Lawrence Holt to create the first Outward Bound school in Aberdovey, Wales. The program emerged from a practical problem: young merchant mariners were dying at alarming rates when their ships were torpedoed during World War II. Holt noticed that older, more experienced seamen often survived while younger sailors perished. The difference, he believed, was not physical strength but mental resilience and the will to survive.
Hahn designed a program that would build that resilience through short, intense courses that combined rigorous physical challenge with character development. They emphasized small-boat handling, rock climbing, and sea rescue operations. But the physical activities served a deeper purpose: to teach young people that they possessed hidden strengths and capabilities. The program’s motto is: “To serve, to strive, and not to yield.”
Like Baden-Powell, Hahn understood that character is developed by confronting challenges. He believed that every child possessed innate spiritual powers and moral judgment, but that modern society dulled these capacities during adolescence. The remedy was what he called experiential therapy—placing young people in situations that demanded courage, cooperation, and perseverance. Physical training was built on self-respect and awareness. Expeditions taught planning and resilience. Service projects developed compassion. All of these elements worked together to prepare young people for what Hahn called “the Great Journey into Life.”
Outward Bound expanded internationally in the decades following World War II. The first American school opened in Colorado in 1962. Programs are adapted to local conditions while maintaining Hahn’s core principles: challenging wilderness expeditions, service to others, and reflection on personal growth. The organization developed specific courses for different age groups and skill levels, all of which maintained the emphasis on pushing beyond perceived limits.
Systematic destruction
The Boy Scouts of America held firm on its core values for nearly a century. In 2000, the Supreme Court ruled in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale that the organization had a First Amendment right to exclude an openly gay assistant scoutmaster. The Court found that the Boy Scouts’ position that homosexual conduct was not morally straight was a protected expression of the organization’s values. This should have settled the matter.
But progressive activists organized campaigns against the organization, and major corporations threatened to withdraw funding. Media coverage portrayed the Boy Scouts as bigoted and out of step with modern values. Despite the Supreme Court victory, the organization’s leadership concluded that maintaining its standards would be too costly.
In May 2013, the Boy Scouts voted to allow openly gay youth members while maintaining the ban on gay adult leaders. The organization claimed that this represented a balanced compromise, but it did not hold. In July 2015, the Boy Scouts lifted the ban on gay adult leaders entirely. The Supreme Court decision that had protected the organization’s right to exclude now meant nothing because the organization had voluntarily abandoned its values.
In 2017, the organization announced that it would accept transgender boys—that is, biological girls who identified as male—into the program. In 2018, it announced that girls would be allowed into the main Boy Scout program for ages 11 to 17. The program changed its name from Boy Scouts to Scouts BSA. The word “boy” disappeared from promotional materials, replaced with the generic term “youth.”
In 2024, the organization announced that the parent organization would rebrand as Scouting America, eliminating the last use of “boy” from its entire portfolio. The organization now has a Chief Diversity Officer and Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion. It requires all Eagle Scouts to earn a diversity, equity, and inclusion badge. The website emphasizes creating “a welcoming, safe environment where Scouts can freely express themselves.”
Each change followed the same script. Progressive activists identified a group that the Boy Scouts excluded. They portrayed this exclusion as discrimination and bigotry. They organized media campaigns and threatened financial consequences. The Boy Scouts’ leadership, desperate to maintain cultural acceptance and corporate funding, capitulated. Then the cycle began again with a new group.
Outward Bound
Outward Bound has undergone a similar transformation, though less visibly than the Boy Scouts. The organization now offers LGBTQ-specific programs explicitly designed to create “affinity spaces” for queer and transgender youth. Outward Bound California partnered with OUT There Adventures to create the first teen LGBTQ backpacking course, which combined wilderness experience in Yosemite with participation in San Francisco Pride events. The program emphasized that students would be “in the presence of LGBTQ role models” and would build community with others who “understand the same struggles they go through.”
Multiple Outward Bound schools now operate similar programs. The North Carolina Outward Bound School runs courses explicitly for LGBTQ teens. The organization’s marketing materials emphasize creating spaces where participants can “explore their sexual and gender identity” while learning outdoor skills. Staff members routinely share personal pronouns during introductions, and the organization promotes this practice as essential to creating “safer spaces” and affirming identities.
Outward Bound Canada maintains an extensive Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion statement that acknowledges barriers faced by “Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual (2SLGBTQIA+)” individuals. The organization formed an Indigenous Advisory Committee and launched a Training Academy for Outdoor Professionals designed to “drive a more diverse candidate pool to ensure Canada’s outdoor leaders better represent Canada’s diversity.” Programs include sliding scale tuition and explicit efforts to recruit participants from historically marginalized groups.
One former participant who attended an Outward Bound trip as a teenager later founded The Venture Out Project, a wilderness guiding company specifically for queer and transgender people. This individual described spending emotional energy on the original Outward Bound trip “protecting themselves” by being careful about pronouns and references to partners. The organization’s response to such accounts has been to modify programs rather than maintain the traditional model that served millions of participants over eight decades.
These changes are a profound departure from Kurt Hahn’s vision. Hahn designed Outward Bound to develop universal human qualities: courage, perseverance, compassion, and service. He emphasized pushing all participants beyond their comfort zones to discover hidden capacities. The new model instead emphasizes identity affirmation and “the creation of spaces where participants feel comfortable expressing their authentic selves.”
The forces of destruction
Organizations like GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign target the Boy Scouts, organizing boycotts and pressure campaigns. They portrayed any organization that maintained sex-based distinctions as discriminatory and harmful. The goal was not merely acceptance of homosexuality but the elimination of any institution that affirmed rational views of sexuality and gender.
Major companies that had long sponsored Boy Scout troops threatened to withdraw funding unless the organization changed its policies. Intel, Merck, and UPS all dropped their support. This financial leverage was considerable, and the Boy Scouts’ leadership proved unwilling to accept the cost of maintaining their principles.
Universities were teaching that gender was a social construct, that masculinity was toxic, and that any organization focused specifically on boys was inherently problematic. Major media outlets treated the Boy Scouts’ traditional policies as obviously wrong and praised every step toward “inclusion.”
For more than a century, the Boy Scouts had operated on the assumption that boys needed specific training to become good men. This required acknowledging that boys were different from girls, that masculine traits existed and mattered, and that male mentorship played an essential role in male development. All of these assumptions were targeted by the insane globalists.
The new ideology insisted that any differences between males and females were either biologically trivial or socially constructed. If boys and girls were fundamentally the same, there would be no justification for separate organizations. If gender itself were fluid and self-determined, then excluding anyone based on biological sex would be arbitrary discrimination. The foundation on which the Boy Scouts rested crumbled.
What has been lost
American boys today face a developmental crisis that the Boy Scouts once helped address. Rates of fatherlessness have climbed to 40 percent of all children. Young males struggle in schools designed around female behavioral patterns. They fall behind girls in reading, writing, and college attendance. They suffer higher rates of suicide, addiction, and criminal involvement. They desperately need the kind of male mentorship and character development that the Boy Scouts once provided.
Instead, they receive messages that their natural inclinations toward physical risk-taking, competition, and hierarchy are toxic. They are told that masculinity itself is problematic and that they need to become more like girls. They are offered no positive vision of what it means to be a good man. The purposeful destruction of the Boy Scouts removed one of the few institutions that provided that vision.
The Boy Scouts produced generations of men who understood duty, service, and sacrifice. Eagle Scouts became military officers, business leaders, and public servants in disproportionate numbers. They brought with them the values they had learned as boys: that competence mattered, that character counted, that men should use their strength to protect and serve rather than dominate. Removing this formative influence weakens the social fabric.
Trail Life USA, founded in 2013 in direct response to the Boy Scouts’ policy changes, has grown to more than 1,200 troops with over 60,000 members. The organization maintains an explicitly Christian worldview and preserves the male-focused mission that the Boy Scouts abandoned. Other alternatives have emerged as well. But none can match the scale and cultural influence that the Boy Scouts once possessed.
For more than a century, American society recognized that boys needed specific training to become good men. We understood that male development required male mentors, physical challenges, and a code of conduct that channeled masculine energy toward constructive ends. We believed that masculinity was good but needed to be cultivated and refined. All of that has been abandoned in favor of a blank-slate ideology that denies biological reality and pathologizes normal male behavior.
Selected references
Baden-Powell, Robert. Scouting for Boys. London: C. Arthur Pearson, 1908.
James, Thomas. Kurt Hahn and the Aims of Education. Penn State University, College of Health and Human Development, 2010.
Mac Donald, Heather. “Girling the Boy Scouts.” City Journal, April 3, 2025. From my editor, KEC: I love this author. When I see so many sick women destroying society - at the behest of male Marxist leaders - there are a few gems. And those gems often outshine their male counterparts because they understand the enemy (sick women) better than the men. Professor Waxman (MD/JD thus proves the syllogism that all doctors could become JDs, but not a few JDs could become MDs) is also a brilliant, scathing mind.
Miner, Joshua L., and Joe Boldt. Outward Bound USA: Crew Not Passengers. Seattle: The Mountaineers Books, 2002.
Rosenthal, Michael. The Character Factory: Baden-Powell’s Boy Scouts and the Imperatives of Empire. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986.
Simonian, Jill. “’ Scouting America’: Hurting boys and girls alike.” The Washington Times, April 3, 2025.
Stemberger, John. “Protecting Boys From the Lies of This World.” Trail Life USA, 2024.
“Boy Scouts of America.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Updated July 20, 1998.
“Our History.” Outward Bound.
“Statement on Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.” Outward Bound Canada, April 6, 2022.
Recommended podcasts
The following podcast episodes have perspectives on the decline of traditional masculinity and the Boy Scouts controversy:
1. “Restoring Historic Masculinity” - WallBuilders Live with Rick Green featuring John Stemberger discussing Trail Life USA and the Boy Scouts’ policy changes.
2. “The Lost Boy Scouts Podcast” - Tyler and Danny discuss masculinity, male development, and modern challenges to traditional manhood.
3. “Washington Watch” with Jody Hice - Features discussions with John Stemberger and Owen Strachan on the Boy Scouts’ decline and masculinity under attack.
Editing help from Jim Arnold of Liar’s World Podcast and the brilliant Elizabeth Cronin (KEC)
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