Wash. Girl Scouts Group Rejects Gift With No-Transgender Clause

A Seattle-area Girls Scouts chapter has raised $175,000 online to replace a donation it rejected because the donor set a condition that the money not be used to support transgender troop members, CNN reports.

More than 3,200 contributors gave in one day to support the “Girl Scouts is #ForEVERYGirl” campaign launched Monday on Indiegogo by the Girl Scouts of Western Washington.

As first reported by Seattle Metropolitan magazine, an unidentified $100,000 donor wrote to the chapter in May, after the national Girl Scouts reaffirmed a policy of accepting transgender youths, asking that the local group “guarantee that our gift will not be use to support transgender girls” or return the money. “Girl Scouts is for every girl,” Megan Ferland, head of the Western Washington Scouts council, said. “And every girl should have the opportunity to be a Girl Scout if she wants to.”