Having been over 114 years since its inception, the Irving, Tx. based youth organization is one of the largest groups garnering character development and values-based leadership training for young people with various programs for 5-year-olds and up to 20-year-olds.

Rebranding to Scouting America—announced on BSA’s fifth anniversary since welcoming girls into the programs—is a recent effort to welcome youths from all walks of life into the program, according to Tuesday’s press release on behalf of BSA.

“Though our name will be new, our mission remains unchanged: we are committed to teaching young people to be Prepared. For Life,” the statement said, referring to the organization’s slogan.

Meanwhile, girls were eligible for admission to join the Cub Scouts, BSA’s program for seven to ten-year-olds in 2018. The next year, older girls aged 11 to 17 were welcomed to its flagship program Scouts BSA.

Additionally, during a virtual news conference during its annual meeting in Florida on Tuesday, president and chief executive officer Roger A. Krone elaborated on the reasoning: to align BSA’s qualifications with their mission to benefit all people.

“While this may be a surprise to some of you, for us this is a straightforward evolution and the next natural step in ensuring all American youth feel welcomed and recognized in an organization that is meant to serve all Americans,” Krone said during the conference. “It’s time our name reflects that.”

Here is all the information you need to get up to speed—from BSA’s history of LGBTQ exclusion to its dark past of lawsuits on sexual abuse.

A slow burn: a timeline of the exclusion of gay members

Before the long battle to include girls in BSA, the organization firmly held policies for decades excluding openly gay individuals from being members, leaders and volunteers. Based on the interpretation of the Scout Oath and Scout Law, which includes the phrase “morally straight,” the refusal to admit gay individuals into BSA was justified by its very mission in 1978.

In April 2012, Jennifer Tyrrell, a lesbian mother from Ohio, was removed from her leadership position in her son’s Cub Scout unit due to her sexual orientation. The following month, Zach Wahls, an Eagle Scout—the highest rank in BSA—and a son of a gay couple based in Iowa became known for his testimony to the state’s legislature.

[EMBED https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSQQK2Vuf9Q]

“If I was your son, Mr. Chairman, I believe I’d make you very proud,” he said in his testimony, alluding to being a child of two moms. Along with other Eagle Scouts, Wahls launched Scouts for Equality, an advocacy organization for LGBTQ Scouts.

Although the BSA doubled down on their ban, it wasn’t until Scouts for Equality successfully petitioned two Change.org campaigns, urging UPS and also Verizon to pull their sponsorships that BSA announced to reconsider the ban in January of 2013. In May, the BSA National Council voted 61% to 39% to remove the ban on gay members.

Today, Wahls is on his second term as a senator in Iowa, representing District 43 since 2018, and it would take another two years until gay members can be Scout leaders, official in 2015.

An era of bathroom bans brought up trans members’ place in the Boy Scouts

In 2016 North Carolina, lawmakers passed the country’s first bill that banned transgender people from using the bathrooms, with Republican lawmakers in Texas filing a similar bill the following year that would require people to use the bathroom or locker room according to the sex in their birth certificates.

In December, the question on whether trans people belonged in certain spaces arrived at BSA’s front steps when 8-year-old trans boy in New Jersey was requested to leave his Cub Scout troop after leaders and other parents found out about his trans identity.

With Wahls’ help, Scouts of Equality returned to demand an expansion in BSA’s inclusion of trans members. The battle was short-lived when chief Scout executive Michael Surbaugh released a statement on Jan. 30, 2017, announcing their policy change to include trans youth.

“After weeks of significant conversations at all levels of our organization, we realized that referring to birth certificates as the reference point is no longer sufficient,” Surbaugh said in the statement.

The change was brought in line alongside other youth organizations, including the Girl Scouts, that also created trans-friendly membership policies. Gender inclusion aside, a grim history amongst Scout members almost disbanded BSA entirely.

A dark past embedded throughout BSA’s existence seeks to find light

In 2020, lawsuits over sexual abuse cost BSA nearly $150 million, which led to the organization filing for bankruptcy the same year. The epidemic of sexual abuse against minors was rampant, having been described as “a magnet for sexual predators.”

Emerging out of bankruptcy last year, BSA set up a court-ordered Victims Compensation Trust that would pay out a total of $2.4 billion amongst 82,000 abuse survivors.

“Our hope is that our Plan of Reorganization will bring some measure of peace to survivors of past abuse in Scouting, whose bravery, patience and willingness to share their experiences has moved us beyond words,” former CEO Roger Mosby said in a statement last year, before passing the torch to Krone, who described the future of BSA as “safer today than it ever has been.”

BSA’s official rebrand to Scouting America goes into effect Feb. 8, 2025, in honor of the organization’s 115th anniversary.