Girl Scouts return huge donation after donor requests it not benefit transgender girls

I don’t really know what the Girls Scouts are, but this was incredible to read.

A $50,000 donation is cause for celebration at the Queen Anne offices of the Girl Scouts of Western Washington. [The council’s CEO, Megan Ferland] came back to the office earlier this spring and announced that she’d just landed a $100,000 donation… Not only did it represent nearly a quarter of the council’s annual fundraising goal, it would pay to send 500 girls to camp. “We were thrilled,” Ferland says.

Except there was a catch. In late May, as news of Caitlyn Jenner’s transition was blowing up your Facebook news feed, she received a letter from the donor with a brief request: Please guarantee that our gift will not be used to support transgender girls. If you can’t, please return the money.

I don’t know how one reads that favourably. But that was Ferland’s response.

In a short letter, she informed the donor that she would, in fact, be returning the money. Her reasoning was simple. “Girl Scouts is for every girl,” she says. “And every girl should have the opportunity to be a Girl Scout if she wants to.”

Every girl. No matter what you or others decide they are.

You can read the whole story here, including the support they’re getting and, importantly, the support they need – it’s incredible reading that organisations reaffirming transgender people as belonging can do wonders to help the trans folk, since it helps combat stigma that leads to the awful situation so many live in.

Indeed, if you want an outline of what that looks like (at least in America), Last Week Tonight had an excellent segment.

Oliver and his crew are suuuuuuuch an SJWs.

Please

Lots of folks are trying to show me support. I really appreciate it, but what I would appreciate more is if you took your energy in fighting battles with people who don’t care about me to raise the voices of minority folk. Maybe use this time to try get more people employed who aren’t straight white men.

Instead of the collective being one that shouts down marginalised folk, let the default collective be one that raises us up and doesn’t let us be drowned out by bizarrely angry and dismissive others. The status quo is broken and solidarity for marginalised voices should be a constant for progress, for looking and moving forward; solidarity shouldn’t only exist for when things dissolve. Things are already broken and supporting one another is how we continue.

Who cares what they’re saying about me? You know who I am. There’s nothing for you to defend, but there’s plenty for you to promote. I’m not going to tell you who that is, you should know. I’m thankful for the volume of support, but please use this energy to get us jobs, get us recognised, get us safe and able to feed ourselves in industries we love but are told we’re not allowed in.

I might return to social media. I might not. I want to be there for my friends. Again: I’d rather not make this about me. Please, help everyone so that no one ever has to go through what I did.

PS: Please stop talking about me in any relation to Gamergate. Talk about abusers, harassers, unwelcoming environments, and so on. Most of us have experienced this long before any hashtag movements.

PPS: People asking for evidence don’t care about evidence. The fact I left a key source of income and employment, where I was able to get pitches, writing gigs, etc., you would think would be sufficient – but, again, they’re not interested in evidence. Please: Don’t debate them, help promote us.

UPDATE: Comment section has reached attention of people I don’t want to talk to (ever/right now), so I’m putting automoderation on. Sorry, but I’m not in a position to handle court-approved evidence submission, people saying I know nothing, etc. I don’t understand why people are this upset, this focused on me, but I really, really want to move on.

UPDATE 2: Please don’t fight in the comment sections. Please don’t demand evidence, I’m not here to  do your bidding. If you are not a friend or follower, this really is quite irrelevant to you. I really do just want to be left alone and want us to focus on creating safe spaces, not partaking in boring anger of people who hate me for reasons I will never understand. If you’re “neutral” about this, I don’t want to hear from you either, thanks. This isn’t a court proceeding. Find a better subject: It’s not me.