Pete Hegseth, No Boy Scout, Reportedly Wants to Put the “Boy” Back in Scouts – Vanity Fair
A Boy Scouts of America Certificate of Registration from 1959. Robert Alexander / Getty Images.SCOUT’S DISHONOR
Pete Hegseth, No Boy Scout, Reportedly Wants to Put the “Boy” Back in Scouts
The Department of Defense won’t comment to VF on the possibly leaked “predecisional” documents, which would push Congress to cut ties with Scouting America
By Kase Wickman, November 25, 2025
Robert Alexander / Getty Images.Remember the good old days, when men were men and scouts were boys? US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth apparently does, and believes that, in fact, the sun set on those golden days in 2018, when the organization then known as Boy Scouts of America amended its rules to allow girls to join. Things got darker still on February 5, 2025, when the entity officially changed its name to Scouting America.
Hegseth is now reportedly prepared to order the government to cut all ties with the organization, ending a relationship that dates back more than a century.
NPR reported Tuesday that the outlet had received drafts of memos Hegseth intends to send to Congress mandating a severing of ties with Scouting America. Hegseth, who never participated in Boy Scouts, wrote in the draft that the organization now serves to “attack boy-friendly spaces,” accusing the group of being “genderless” and promoting “gender confusion.”
“The organization once endorsed by President Theodore Roosevelt no longer supports the future of American boys,” Hegseth reportedly wrote in a memo.
According to the Scouting America website, “The mission of Scouting America is to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law.”
Hegseth, however, reportedly believes that the group’s mission is to “cultivate masculine values,” per one memo, and that they are failing at it.
When contacted by Vanity Fair for comment, an official from the Department of Defense said, “The Department will not comment on leaked documents that we cannot authenticate and that may be predecisional.” Representatives for Scouting America did not immediately respond to Vanity Fair’s request for further comment.
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