The Scouts and the non-binary butterfly 🦋

[lcakethereforeIam]

Saw this article in the Telegraph

https://archive.ph/kBENd

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/04/why-are-the-scouts-plying-our-children-with-woke-nonsense/

Eta add link and

I know the Scouts accepts both boys and girls, has done for years, and they were lackadaisical about the sleeping arrangements of kids and leaders who claimed trans identities, but this seems a whole new level of fucked up!

Is Bear Grylls still Chief Scout? Is he actually a bear?

Butterflies can't be non-binary.

To quote Butterfly Conservation "..like humans, butterflies are either male or female. They mate, joining the tips of their abdomens, and the male passes sperm to the female in order to fertilize her eggs. The female then lays her eggs on plants or on the ground."

Some biology lessons - and some on wildlife and conservation - would do the Scouts a lot more good.

It's not Bear anymore (did I see him going a bit woo with Russel Brand?) he stepped down.

Butterfly Conservation are transphobic bigots then...or sane. Hard to tell the difference.

It's Dwayne now.

Going to have to start taking more note of what my son is doing at scouts.... mind you, knowing the lads a little, pro nouns will be ridiculed.

There's also a lot of girls who are clear they're girls.

I can't help wondering - sorry to cast doubts but... is this real? I googled 'Billy [not a very NB name, is it?] the Non Binary Butterfly' and all I got were reports condemning it, but no link to its existence.

I searched on the Scouts UK website and the only hit I got was
'Billy can breakfast beans' - which I think is beyond the capability of any butterfly, NB or not

Any actual links to the original source of this?

www.scouts.org.uk/about-us/our-people/chief-scout/#

There's the activity on the scout website

www.scouts.org.uk/activities/pronoun-pairs/

This is the video they show. Australian.

This is against kcsie. I can't remember if scouts have to follow kcsie but I thought youth groups were supposed to for their own protection.

What a pile of shite. My nearly 12 year old would not be interested

What? The Rock?

I don't have any kids in the Scouts, they aged out before I was aware of this stuff and before it became too rampant. If I did I'd be trying to spread the word amongst the other parents and having a word with the in charge person, is it still Arkala(sp?)?

Butterflies can actually be both male and female - but it is a developmental issue.

Its known as gynandromorphism.

Not that this makes it any less ridiculous as it’s it isn’t “non binary” in any way. These individuals have a sex - but during development they end up with cells for both male and female within their bodies - often with male on one side and female on the other although there are other presentations.

Non binary isn’t real. Everyone has a sex. Some people just choose not to go along with the sex based stereotypes.

My kids are all or have been scouts and it'sbeenagreat experience. Luckily it was nothing like this. That game looks tedious.

🤣

Dwayne below

I'm going to be bringing this up with our troop.

Luckily our cubs group use the Online Scout Manager website so we can see the whole programme for the term. I keep a close eye in case anything concerning creeps in but so far so good. I think whether groups do this kind of activity will be very dependent on the individual leaders. Ours mostly are local dads who don't seem to have any vested political or activist nature!

Yes ours do too. They also from experience, make sure parents are ok with quite a lot of the things they do.

<logs on to scan the activities for once>

Hmmm beavers are on it well but scouts it's just all un named meetings...

I'm a Scout Leader and I won't do stuff like this. I can't lie to kids, humans can't change sex.

One of our young leaders ran an evening recently which included gender equality. I was worried it would include TQ++++ stuff, but she just went with how saying girls can't play football, boys can't do dance etc was ridiculous and both can do anything they want. Which is exactly what Scouts should be saying.

You can't say anything gender critical on the Facebook pages, whole posts get deleted.

Dwayne looks lovely.

I've seen photos of gynandromorphic butterflies. They look extraordinary, as they're only likely to be noticed in species that are sexually dimorphic, one side will have the male pattern and, sometimes, wing shape, the other side the female. They are binary though, if anything these poor creatures underline it.

Its aimed at one small criterion on one Scout badge (10-14).
They need to take part in an activity which explores beliefs and attitudes about gender or disability. (In the context of sport, music or fashion).

The Scout website provides loads of activity ideas which we can use or ignore.

So some Scouts may have done it... but there are a lot better activities for that particular criteria.

My son's group certainly does a lot on disability.

This is interesting - although the badge criterion talks about attitude to gender OR disability, all 9 of the suggested activities on the website relate to the gender/LGBTQ+/pride option. No activities there whatsoever about disability rights/equality/prejudices. Obviously lots of scout leaders will be able to think up their own activities anyway, but the uneven emphasis is quite striking.

Every day's an education on mumsnet. Gynandromorphic butterflies are a marvel of nature.

Fortunately our scout group leaders are sane. When my son's disability was diagnosed the leaders did everything they could to adapt to his needs and support him taking part in their activities . They are everything the scouts used to stand for and usually do.

This week we will have a family oriented fireworks night with a bit of hot food cooked up by the older lads and a 'best guy' competition for the younger ones.

I'm very grateful for the opportunities they've given my boys, and as it's a mixed sex group, if I had a daughter I'd have happily sent her too.

“To show respect for people, we need to use the pronouns that they feel most comfortable with.”

need to use….😖

This is such a shame. The scouts was formational for my son. I would have hated to have him to be indoctrinated by this misogynist and unscientific rubbish.

The thing with Scouting is it's down to the individual leaders. Most leaders are not going to 'teach' anything controversial, if they have any experience at all they won't want to upset any parents.
When we used to do a session on drugs and alcohol to cover a badge criteria we'd get Hope international in and all parents were rewarded about the topic.

The scouting Facebook groups are rife with Woke idiots who jump on you for saying something as simple as let kids be kids and even implying that we should be teaching kids to love who they are not pushing them to change is shot down.

Generally your average volunteer in scouting is a parent or someone who's been involved for a long time. We tend to focus on Scouting(fires, camps, skills for life) the other bits are more of a tick box to get the critera.

Most times I hope this particular criteria is covered by talking about disabilities, hidden and obvious or sex discrimination.

As a leader, I haven't even heard of "Billy the none binary butterfly". We are very inclusive in scouting but certainly do not try to "brainwash" our young people and do still do traditional scouting activities such as camping, outdoor and adventurous activity. We do some disability awareness and teaching young people new skills. I think the news just love to post anything negative about scouting. I did read the article yesterday and was just shocked at how ridiculous it was.