Trans activist asks followers to buy male ‘girl scouts’ cookies

Erin Reed, a trans-identified male and prominent American trans activist, tweeted a thread of trans-identified scouts, encouraging the account’s 128K followers to buy cookies because “trans kids are under attack nationwide.”

Reed implores followers to “make the lives of some trans scouts a little bit better,” and shared a thread of links to the young gender-confused people selling cookies to raise funds for various causes.

“The Girl Scouts has accepted trans girls and non-binary kids for years now. Let’s make the lives of some trans scouts a little bit better and get tasty cookies to boot,” said Reed.

Girls Scouts began accepting male children who have been led to believe that their gender nonconformity makes them girls in the early 2010s.

In 2011, the national organization for girls announced that “Girl Scouts is for anyone that identifies as a girl, including transgender girls,” according to a Wired article at the time.

This statement was in response to a male child being denied membership by a Colorado troop. The article says the leader “wasn’t sensitive to the difference between gender and sexuality.”

That leader was swiftly sent for sensitivity training, and Girl Scouts Colorado released a statement clarifying their official position.

“Girl Scouts is an inclusive organisation and we accept all girls in Kindergarten through 12th grade as members. If a child identifies as a girl and the child’s family presents her as a girl, Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a girl,” said the 2011 statement.

In 2023, that policy remains unchanged. Girl Scouts says on its website that the organisation is “proud to be the premiere leadership organization for girls” in the U.S.

“If the child is recognised by the family and school/community as a girl and lives culturally as a girl, then Girl Scouts is an organization that can serve her in a setting that is both emotionally and physically safe,” reads the website.

One of the children Reed lists is a “trans girl from Ohio,” who is “extremely active in her local community and raising awareness about trans youth in the Girl Scouts.”

Then there is a non-binary scout raising funds for the troop to travel to Alaska, and a “trans girl” who fled Texas.

Reed tweeted Thursday to say that around 5,000 boxes of cookies had been sold so far, and took the opportunity to encourage people to go and buy more.

One Twitter user compared the trans-identified male Girl Scouts outselling girls because of an unfair advantage to Lia Thomas, the male swimmer who stole swimming titles from female competitors last year.

“I’m sorry y’all but this just gets under my skin. I’m sorry. I’m trying to be a better human for Lent but these girls are selling hundreds of boxes of cookies while real girls get the shaft again. It’s Lia Thomas stealing swimming titles all over again,” she tweeted. “If the trans girls are real girls, make them sell cookies just like the other real girls.”