美国国家公共电台 NPR Boy Scouts Will Admit Transgender Boys（在线收听）

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One more development in this dramatic newsweek - a surprise announcement late Monday. The Boy Scouts of America say that they will begin accepting transgender boys who want to join its scouting programs. NPR's Richard Gonzales reports.

RICHARD GONZALES, BYLINE: The news of the Scouts' policy change came in a written and video statement released by the chief scout executive Michael Surbaugh. He says that for more than 100 years, the Scouts used information on an individual's birth certificate to determine a boy's eligibility to join in its single-gender programs. But now, he says, communities and states are interpreting gender identity differently. And the old policy no longer works because the laws vary from state to state.

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MICHAEL SURBAUGH: Starting today, we will accept registration in our Scouting programs based on the gender identity provided on an individual's application.

GONZALES: But Surbaugh seemed to anticipate that the policy change will be met with more than a little skepticism, if not outright opposition in some areas of the country.

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SURBAUGH: We will also continue to work with families to find Scouting units that are the best fit for their children.

GONZALES: The policy change comes after the scout leadership was confronted by the case of 8-year-old Joe Maldonado of New Jersey. He had joined a scout troop last fall, but was then forced out after parents and local leaders discovered that he had been born a girl. That publicity wasn't good. Justin Wilson is the executive director of Scouts for Equality, a group of Eagle Scouts, former scouts, parents and volunteers who oppose discrimination within the group.

JUSTIN WILSON: They saw the public reaction, they saw the harm that this caused for this child, for this family, and they thought that it was a distraction from doing what they do best which is serving the Scouting programs. In response to that relatively short discussion, they made this historic change.

GONZALES: Wilson says the speed of the Boy Scouts' decision stands in sharp contrast to the 37-year battle for the inclusion of lesbian, gay and bisexual Scouts, employees and troop leaders. As for Joe Maldonado, his mother Christie told the Associated Press that she would like for her son to rejoin the Scouts, but only if the leader who kicked him out leaves. Richard Gonzales, NPR News.