#scout network

Since most of us are still stuck at home, and there’s not much scouting going on right now, I’ve decided to start up my Queer Scouting project again.

This year with a little twist!

Do you have photos of you taking part in a Pride event with scouting or guiding? Have you visited the Rainbow Cafe at a camp? Do you have many queer friends within scouting?

If i’m going to do this project, it’s only fair that I tell you all my story. (This will come in video form too later on.)

I go by Phaona on here, which is my Cub Scout Leader name, and i’m a sectional assistant and Network Scout, as a member of The Scout Association. I only joined scouting as a 15 year old Explorer Scout, so I missed out on a lot of the traditional scouting things. First camps, badges, that kind of thing. We didn’t really do any of that in Explorers.

I didn’t realise I was different until I left Explorers when I turned 18. Even then I wasn’t sure whether I was queer or just a late developer, seen as I had been in literally every other aspect of my life. Or you know, maybe I was just wierd like everyone else thought. I had a boyfriend, and by this point we’d been together a couple of years, but I didn’t want to do anything with him. I thought something was wrong with me, and I was convinced that we wouldn’t last because I was making life difficult for him. 

But then, while I was at uni, I came across a post on Tumblr talking about Asexuality. It described not feeling sexual attraction, but that you might still feel romantic attraction. That was me! I know it’s just a word, and by all rights it shouldn’t be that important, but it felt so damn good to know that there were enough people in the world that felt the same as me that there was a word for it!

I came out to my friends at uni first. I may have been a ittle bit drunk, but hey, it got the job done. Something like 9 months later I finally came out to my boyfriend, and he was fine with it. Then I found out that there was a lesbian girl and a gay boy in our Explorer group (by this point I was an occassional helper), and honestly, it felt so good that I wasn’t alone. It still took a while longer for me to come out though. 

I forget how I came out, but I know it was to some of the Explorers first. Then it turned out one of my best friends in scouting was bi! After that my confidence grew and grew, and I ended up being out completely, except to my parents, who happen to be scout leaders at the same group…

I mean, it’s not that I don’t think they’d accept me, it’s more that I don’t think they’d understand what Asexuality is, and i’d rather not have to explain it and sit through their questioning. If they figured out that I wasn’t straight though, i’d happily tell them. But at the minute I don’t think it’s any of their business.

Now that the kids all know that i’m not straight, I often end up getting questions about it. Sometimes one particular kid will ask me about gender or what it’s like to actually feel sexual attraction, which I obviously can’t answer. So I tell him that. I explain that I just don’t know. I don’t have the experience. And if my parents show up, they all know to stop talking about it in case it makes things difficult for me.