On My Honor: Lesbians Reflect on their Scouting Experiences

By Nancy Manahan

Nancy Manahan and Rosemary Curb shattered centuries of taboo with their international bestseller, Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence. Now, in this re-released classic, Manahan documents another taboo topic: lesbian Girl Scouts.

 

On My Honor: Lesbians Reflect on Their Scouting Experience is the first book to explore the contributions lesbians have made to scouting organizations and the impact scouting has had on them. In personal stories, lesbians from the US and abroad share their joy, empowerment, and sometimes disillusionment with Girl Scouting.

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"This is an important book. It not only celebrates the fine character of lesbians in Girl Scouting, but also offers, to those who can hear its message, a compliment to Girl Scouting: these contributors 'keep a promise well,' caring to leave the organization in better condition than they found it. Thanks to Nancy Manahan for giving a brave, and I believe, representative voice to so many important present and past Girl Scouts."
Cindy Dasch, MSW, LICSW, OSS Macalester College, St. Paul, MN

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nanbec Books
• Release date: Jun 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201658632

Nancy Manahan

Nancy Manahan, Ph.D., is a retired community college English teacher. Her books include Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence, prompted by her year in the Maryknoll Missionary Sisters, published in 11 counties in 7 languages. On My Honor: Lesbians Reflect on Their Scouting Experience, published in 1997, was reissued in paperback and as an e-book in 2021. The award-winning Living Consciously, Dying Gracefully: A Journey with Cancer and Beyond was written with her wife Becky Bohan. Nancy and Becky are founding members of the Minnesota Threshold Network, educating people about conscious dying, family-directed after-death care, and green burials. They make their home at Carefree, a lesbian community in N. Ft. Myers, Florida. For information about Nancy and Becky’s six published books, visit www.nanbec.com. (Updated 2020)

Book preview

Suppressed Voices Speak Out

Nancy Manahan and Rosemary Keefe Curb shattered centuries of taboo with their international bestseller, Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence. Now, in this re-released classic, Manahan explores another taboo topic: lesbian Girl Scouts.

For years, the Girl Scouts, the largest voluntary organization of girls and women in the world, has sent a clear message to the lesbians in its ranks—stay hidden. Although some lesbian girls and women have felt at home in the world of Girl Scouting, others have endured discrimination and hypocrisy. In spite of the fact that its mission is the empowerment of girls, the organization has devalued and disempowered many of its adult volunteers and professional staff, as well as its young members, because it has subscribed to society’s entrenched fear of homosexuality.

That gap between the Girl Scouts’ professed values and actual practice can be painfully wide. Despite a policy of nondiscrimination, the organization that has launched so many young women into productive lives as activists, innovators and leaders practices de facto don’t ask, don’t tell — a practice that ignores scouting’s own core values and beliefs.

On My Honor: Lesbians Reflect on Their Scouting Experience is the first book to explore the contributions lesbians have made to Girl Scouting, the impact scouting has had on lesbians, and some of the problems undermining this relationship.

Praise for On My Honor

Lauren Coodley as scout photo

A reinvigorated feminism began in the l970’s, when I was invited to teach the first women’s studies course at Napa Community College and met Nancy Manahan, then teaching the first women’s literature class. Nancy took advantage of the deep interest in reclaiming and rediscovering women of the past. On My Honor represents the scholarship that created collections of women telling our stories, usually for the first time. The story of Scouting and of how it transformed the lives of girls is never out of date. Today, with the invitation from Boy Scouts for girls to join, and the disappearance of all-girl colleges, it is important to revisit what Girl Scouting offers.

Silences are broken when girls get the chance to share experiences and meet challenges, in or out of the classroom. The silence about lesbians in the Girl Scouts was shattered by Nancy Manahan’s path-breaking book, and I welcome its re-emergence in a world where women have not come so far, and where all-girl spaces are threatened anew.

Lauren Coodley, author of the feminist biography Upton Sinclair: California Socialist, Celebrity Intellectual and four books of Napa history, most recently Lost Napa Valley, 2021. Nancy Manahan’s pioneering Gemini business is featured in Coodley’s Napa Valley Chronicles.

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Esther Newton Lesbians are everywhere, including in Girl Scouting, and this book, like so much of our history long out of print, tells first person stories with accuracy and charm. Manahan brings GirlScouting to life and makes an important contribution to our understanding of the importance of scouting to developing women’s strengths and confidence.

Esther Newton, Ph.D., cultural anthropologist, author of My Butch Career, Margaret Mead Made Me Gay. Subject of 2021 documentary film Esther Newton Made Me Gay.

dividerHon. Bellinger at the bench with scouts

In 1962 when I received my dabbler badge and a bronze statue of a scout for being Girl Scout of the Year for my Upstate New York Council, little did I know that twenty-nine years later I would be sitting on the Los Angeles Superior Court. The stories of successful women in On My Honor: Lesbians Reflect on Their Scouting Experience, help me understand this miracle.

Girl Scouting taught me to do the best at every undertaking in life, to be fair-minded and consider the feelings of others. It taught me to be organized, resourceful and proud of who I am. It gave me the courage to be an out lesbian judge because integrity is the most important characteristic a person can have.

Hon. Martha E. Bellinger, retired judge, Los Angeles Superior Court for the State of California. Author of The Two Ruths.

dividerSara Jane Elliot

I never leave home without my pocketknife. Once a Girl Scout, always a Girl Scout! On My Honor takes me back to my scouting years and the wonderful women I met who helped advance the national leadership of Girl Scouting. Nancy Manahan has compiled poignant stories about the experiences of such valiant women.

Sara Jane Elliot, Miss Girl Scout Cookie 1952, Portland, Maine. As an adult, Sara Jane was the financial advisor for the Kennebec Girl Scout Council.

dividerElsa Greene, PhD photo

On My Honor chronicles the Girl Scouts’ surprising role in the self-discovery of young lesbians during the latter part of the twentieth century. Simply by giving the contributing essayists an opportunity to live in a community of women at summer camp, the Scouts awakened them to the uncomfortable gender roles that constrained them back home. That illuminating experience emboldened them to pursue their dreams and desires, however unconventional. Hopefully, the Girl Scouts will continue to offer girls, whether straight or gay, a life-enhancing respite from patriarchal expectations.

Elsa Greene, Ph.D., J.D., former Women’s Studies Coordinator, University of Pennsylvania.

dividerVictoria Brownworth photo

This book is about breaking silence, something Nancy Manahan understands in a way few other editors do. Once again, she has taken on the exploration and examination of lesbian experience within a community of women that is as American as apple pie (or Girl Scout cookies). As she touched on our spiritual center in Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence, she touches on our cultural center in this book.

This is a book all lesbians should read, because it is about our experience and history as lesbians; it forms part of our cultural identity. But it is also a book all women should read, whether they (or their mothers, daughters, aunts, cousins, friends) have been scouts or not. Because it is, more than anything, about what it means to be a girl and woman in our society, what the struggle for personal, gender and sexual identity means for women and how we empower ourselves through speaking out, through breaking silence, through understanding what honor among girls and women really should mean. (From the Foreword)

Victoria A. Brownworth, Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist, author and editor of more than twenty books, including the Lambda Award-winning Coming Out of Cancer: Writings from the Lesbian Cancer Epidemic, From Where We Sit: Black Writer Write Black Youth, and Ordinary Mayhem.

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Make new friends but keep the old... This book will remind you of the joys of Girl Scouting. Whether you are a lesbian or not, you’ll find the memories a delight—a step back to your youth, to strong women working and playing together. Read and remember!

Cynthia Graham, Past President, Northern Pine Girl Scout Council, Duluth, Minnesota

dividerCarol Anne Douglas photo

On My Honor makes me wish I had been a Girl Scout. It’s full of tales of girls bonding with nature and each other. Most were semi-conscious of lesbian feelings. Some were punished for them. All grew up to be leaders.

Carol Anne Douglas, formerly with off our backs: a feminist news journal. Author of Love & Politics: Radical Feminist & Lesbian Theories, Lancelot: Her Story, and Lancelot and Guinevere.

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Jill Cruse as scout These stories of strong, independent women reveal nuggets of the history of how Girl Scouts shaped lesbian lives and how lesbians shaped Girl Scouts. We were the closeted Executive Directors of Councils, National Staff, Leaders, Camp Directors, Counselors, and campers. GSUSA was far ahead of its time in the early 1980s; personnel policies stated the Girl Scouts would not discriminate based on sexual orientation, a quiet don’t ask, don’t tell policy. If volunteers or employees told or were outed (as in my case), the volunteers, local councils and National Council often were supportive.

Girl Scouting prepared me for my jobs and my life by giving me a sense of self and the confidence to dream big. Thanks to Nancy Manahan for documenting our stories.

Jill Cruse, Girl Scout Unit Leader, Outdoor Program and camp director 1978, 1979, and 1981-1986 at Camp Scherman, Girl Scout Council of Orange County, CA; Vice President of Guest Experience of Olivia Travel, 1989 to present.

dividerSara Fleming photo

Of all the wonderful memories of my time in Girl Scouts, the most delightful was when other campers accidentally dropped my sleeping bag in the creek. On that chilly Pennsylvania night, I was forced to share Mary B’s sleeping bag. Oh, sweet adolescent bliss!

Forty-six years later, I toured the Juliette Gordon Lowe house in Savannah, remembering the useful skills I had learned in my troop, as well as the many exciting sleeping bag shares with Mary B. I asked, What’s the position of GSA on having lesbians in troops? The tour guide replied It’s not a problem, as long as they don’t talk about it. For Mary and me, sleeping together was not a problem, and we certainly did not talk about it!

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if GSUSA transitioned from don’t ask, don’t tell to acceptance? Nancy Manahan’s model Letter of Reconciliation would be an excellent start.

Sara Fleming, Girl Scout, Istanbul, Turkey and Mechanicsburg, PA. Retired Occupational Therapist, avid kayaker.

dividerDianna Hunter photo

In On My Honor: Lesbians Reflect on Their Scouting Experience, Nancy Manahan and the collected writers illuminate a history seldom brought to light. These stories remind me of what it was like to find identity, role models, and particular friends in the Scouts. Like many of these writers, I found a freedom to inhabit my own body, a space where I didn’t have to worry about conforming to my culture’s gendered expectations. Scouts were able to take on physical and emotional challenges and encounter early glimmers of our attraction to other women.

The Girl Scout Promise begins, On my honor I will try. There’s no self-righteousness or certainty in these words—just an underlying conviction that what we say and do matters and what we teach girls matters. The right to matter and the agency to try have never been sure things for girls, especially not for girls who think they might love other girls. On My Honor shows that the latter is not always true even in the Girl Scouts. The anthology’s postscript and appendices provide excellent resources.

Dianna Hunter, retired teacher and coordinator, Women’s and Gender Studies Program, University of Wisconsin-Superior. Author of Wild Mares: My Lesbian Back-to-the-Land Life and Breaking Hard Ground: Stories of the Minnesota Farm Advocates.

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This is an important book. It not only celebrates the fine character of lesbians in Girl Scouting, but also offers, to those who can hear its message, a compliment to Girl Scouting: these contributors keep a promise well, caring to leave the organization in better condition than they found it. Thanks to Nancy Manahan for giving a brave, and I believe, representative voice to so many important present and past Girl Scouts.

Cindy Dasch, MSW, LICSW, Office of Student Services, Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota

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divider I knew I was where I needed to be as I entered a room full of Brownies, and the leader, my mother, called the girls together. That began a journey of participating as a girl, an adult leader, and a full-time employee in three councils and National staff. Each step helped me appreciate the value of an organization that thrived on the leadership and participation of lesbian women, as powerfully and nostalgically documented in On My Honor. The book will take readers on a journey through their Girl Scout years to enjoy again the challenges and joys of participation.

Jane Baker, professional Girl Scout for twenty-three years; lifetime member of Girl Scouts.

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These touching stories and Manahan's insightful commentary can heal old wounds, evoke both outrage and laughter and support the Girl Scouts in their efforts toward diversity.

Ruth Baetz, MSW, author of Lesbian Crossroads and Wild Communion.

dividerBobbie Baxter as scout

The stories in On My Honor remind me that Girl Scouts made me who I am. Scouts and non-scouts alike will enjoy these gripping, sometime humorous accounts of how all-female environments empower girls and women. The 1965 Roundup in Idaho was a life-changing experience, making me realize I could go way beyond New Jersey. It gave me the courage to test myself at Outward Bounds in Texas and Minnesota. I’ve traveled from Africa to Russia and many places in between.

I am now in my 70s, and my wife and I live in another all-female community in Florida. It's like a Girl Scout camp with no kaper charts or sit-upons, just comfortable homes and the joyful atmosphere of 500 women singing, playing, and accomplishing creative projects together.

Bobbie Baxter, 1976 Girl Scout of the year, Union, New Jersey; lifetime Girl Scout member, registered for 64 years; Board of Directors WRGSC; staff member at National Center West; staff member at Girl Scout camps in New Jersey, New York, and Wisconsin. Retired in 2004 after 33 years as a Health and Physical Education teacher.

dividerTricia Scully in forest

On My Honor captures the essence of Girl Scouting in my life and in the lives of so many women and girls. Girl Scouting provided opportunities to help me discover who I am and diverse experiences to define what I appreciate most in life. My years as a counselor-in-training and camp counselor provided a clear path to my thirty-four-year career as a teacher for deaf and hard-of-hearing students.

Tricia Scully, Girl Scout in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Camp counselor in Wisconsin and Michigan. Produced and directed the documentary Girl Scouts; A Memoir (2018), Tricia Scully Collection, Lesbian Home Movie Project, POB 308, Orland, ME 04472 www.lesbianhomemovieproject.org

dividerTess Holt playing guitar

I loved On My Honor: Lesbians Reflect on Their Scouting Experience. I came out in Girl Scouts and found kindred spirits in all the book’s stories. I can’t wait to read the updated On My Honor and see what has become of these Scouts.

Tess Imholt, former Girl Scout National Center West staff member, currently a public librarian, always a Girl Scout at heart.

dividerElizabeth Sims photo

"This anthology is engaging and smart. Manahan's introduction and sectional prefaces demonstrate understanding of an organization that has empowered millions of girls and women while harming many of them through lesbian purges and other manifestations of homophobia. The photos are charming and the invented badges humorous. Because of its importance as a cultural and historical document, I give On My Honor five stars."

Elizabeth Sims, author of the Lambda Literary Award-winning Lillian Byrd crime series and the Rita Farmer mysteries.

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Copyright © 1997 - 2021 by Nancy Manahan

All Rights Reserved.

Except for quotations and excerpts appearing in reviews, this work may not be reproduced or transmitted, in whole or in part, by any means whatsoever, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Cover by Terry Roy

Interior formatting by Terry Roy

Interior section illustrations by Lynne Tuft

Badge illustrations by Terry Roy

SECOND EDITION 2021

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

On my honor: lesbians reflect on their scouting experience / edited by Nancy Manahan; illustrations by Lynne Tuft; foreword by Victoria A. Brownworth.

p.cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 1-886231-02-8 (alk. paper)

1. Lesbian Girl Scouts—United States. I. Manahan, Nancy, 1946.

HS3357.L4705 1997

369.463’086’643—dc2197-36697 CIP

Rev 06-08-2021

Nanbec Books Logo

www.nanbec.com

CONTENTS

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FOREWORD

Victoria A. Brownworth

INTRODUCTION

A Simple Question of Justice

Nancy Manahan

PART I - Empowerment

CHAPTER 1 ~ Down the Saranac with Sixteen Paddles

Judith McDaniel

CHAPTER 2 ~ Camp or Bust

Martha McPheeters

CHAPTER 3 ~ Camp Fires

Jeanne Córdova

CHAPTER 4 ~ One Entry Point to Lesbian Nation

Margaret Cruikshank

CHAPTER 5 ~ Becoming a Canada Tripper, 1965

Carol (Heenan) Seajay

CHAPTER 6 ~ Right-Wing Poster Child

Rosemary Keefe Curb

CHAPTER 7 ~ An International Sisterhood

Amanda Kovattana

CHAPTER 8 ~ The Land of Heart’s Desire

Jane Eastwood

CHAPTER 9 ~ Mostly Gifts

Nancy Franz

CHAPTER 10 ~ A Trio of Uniforms

Terry King

PART II - Fulfillment

CHAPTER 11 ~ Lesbians, Lightning, and Bears

Judith Niemi

CHAPTER 12 ~ All I Really Need to Know about Being a Lesbian I Learned at Girl Scout Camp

Terry Martin

CHAPTER 13 ~ I Was A Lesbian Girl Scout Hero

Laura L. Post

CHAPTER 14 ~ I Know A Song And It Wants To Be Sung

Marcia Munson

CHAPTER 15 ~ The Ship

Jamie Anderson

CHAPTER 16 ~ Twist Me And Turn Me

Susan Rothbaum

CHAPTER 17 ~ We Loved Fiercely

Donna Tsuyuko Tanigawa

CHAPTER 18 ~ I Will Do My Best: To Be Honest (Excerpt from the Girl Scout Law)

Holli Van Nest

CHAPTER 19 ~ What We Let Ourselves Become

Henri Bensussen

PART III - Disillusionment

CHAPTER 20 ~ Beneath One Roof

Rachel Wetherill

CHAPTER 21 ~ Lesbians in the Girl Scouts: You Don’t Bring Your Lover to a Troop Meeting

Jorjet Harper

CHAPTER 22 ~ Dear Nancy

From a Concerned Girl Scout

CHAPTER 23 ~ Lessons in Green and Brown

Cara L. Vaughn

CHAPTER 24 ~ My Other Dysfunctional Family

Kim Messner

CHAPTER 25 ~ Testimony

Kristen Renn

PART IV - Acceptance and Integration

CHAPTER 26 ~ High Up, High on the Mountain

Maike and Roberta Garland

CHAPTER 27 ~ Rocky Mountain High

Rosemary LePage

CHAPTER 28 ~ It Was the Girl Scouts!

Janet de Vries

CHAPTER 29 ~ Getting Real: Girl Scout Policies in the Age of Diversity

An Interview with Dawn Ace

CHAPTER 30 ~ The Cookie Closet

Jill Kennedy

CHAPTER 31 ~ What Acceptance Looks Like

Beth Toolan

POSTSCRIPT

A Letter of Reconciliation I Wish Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. Would Write

Nancy Manahan

APPENDIX

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

RESOURCES

CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES

INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Seal Press for permission to reprint Judith McDaniel’s Scouts on the Saranac under the original title Down the Saranac with Sixteen Paddles and Carol (Heenan) Seajay’s Becoming a Canada Tripper, 1965 from Rivers Running Free, eds. Judith Niemi and Barbara Wieser, 1992; to Jorjet Harper for permission to reprint Lesbian Girl Scouts: ‘You Don’t Bring Your Lover to a Troop Meeting; to Cindy Dasch for permission to reprint the chorus of On My Honor; and to the Tierra del Oro Girl Scout Council for permission to reprint terms from their Glossary of Girl Scout Terms.

I appreciate all the help I received with this book. My deepest thanks to:

My spouse Becky Bohan, author of Sinister Paradise, Fertile Betrayal, and A Light on Altered Land and my co-author on Living Consciously, Dying Gracefully: A Journey with Cancer and Beyond for having the idea of a book about lesbian Girl Scouts; for encouraging me at every stage of the three-year process of gathering, editing, and writing material for the book; for contributing invaluable advice; and for giving me loving support on the home front.

My friends Ruth Baetz, author of Lesbian Crossroads: Personal Stories of Lesbian Struggles and Triumphs and Wild Communion: Experiencing Peace in Nature, for editing nearly every piece in the book; Myra Williams for putting me in touch with African American Girl Scouts; Lauren Coodley for giving me perceptive feedback on the introduction; and several professional Girl Scouts, who asked to remain anonymous, for reading and commenting on the manuscript.

My brother, Jim Manahan; my sister, Margaret Manahan-Gert; and Cynthia Graham and LaVerle McAdams, for copyediting the manuscript.

My brother, Bill Manahan, and his wife, Diane Manahan, for financing part of the book promotion tour.

Thanks to all the women who contributed to this book. I appreciate your courage and generosity in sharing your stories and photographs as well as your patience with my editing and the rounds of revisions.

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To my mother, Ruth Hinchon Manahan, in appreciation for her love, acceptance, and encouragement in all my endeavors. Her integrity, hard work, generosity, and enthusiasm for life have been a profound influence. I am particularly grateful to my mother for helping begin Girl Scouting in our hometown, Madelia, Minnesota, the year after I was born.

To my sister Pat Manahan Anderson, who taught me Girl Scout songs, helped me earn badges, and (as Patches) kept me safe one summer when she was the camp nurse, the waterfront director, and the swimming, canoeing, and boating instructor at Girl Scout Camp Tukawah, in New Ulm, Minnesota.

To the Girl Scout Troop 56 mothers and members, as well as the other volunteers and staff of the Peacepipe Girl Scout Council, for making Girl Scouting available to girls growing up in southern Minnesota.

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FOREWORD

Victoria A. Brownworth

literary lambda badge I ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A Girl Scout.

It wasn’t the uniform. I went to Catholic school; I’d had my fill of uniforms. It wasn’t the cookies. You could always get the cookies at school from someone who was a scout. It wasn’t even the badges, though these were intriguing and slightly mysterious—very different from anything one got at school or church.

No, my desire to be a Girl Scout stemmed from something far deeper than these somewhat frivolous accoutrements of the scouting mystique. I grew up in the 1960s when being a girl was still very much about perfecting traits like politeness and even servility; striving as the nuns at my school explained so succinctly, to be unremarkable. In the 1960s girls were raised to be as homogenous as society could make them (without even the diversity inherent in Girl Scout cookies). Girls did not speak unless they were spoken to, girls did not excel because it might make boys appear stupid, girls did not think about careers except as a hedge against that time when they would achieve the premiere goal for any girl: marriage and family. A girl was groomed from birth to be the perfect wife and mother. The journey to that acme of domestic bliss did not include individuating one’s self or broadening one’s horizons except as it might increase one’s desirability as a possible mate.

In this Ozzie-and-Harriet atmosphere where my destiny as a future Harriet seemed preordained, I yearned to be a Girl Scout because Girl Scouts seemed to have the best of both worlds. Scouting was an acceptable, even laudatory pastime for girls while also offering a variety of experiences not available to girls in other social or even educational contexts. I wanted to be a Girl Scout because in books I read as a young girl (and I was always a voracious reader), scouts did things other girls did not. Girl Scouts were participants, not passive observers; they did not sit idle on the sidelines ceding action to boys alone. Girl Scouts went hiking and camping. Girl Scouts could survive if they were lost in the woods by blazing a trail, making a campfire by rubbing sticks together, cooking on a stove made from an old juice or soup can, fashioning a lean-to out of branches and leaves. (This aspect of scouting had particular resonance for me because I spent a great deal of time in the woods surrounding the neighborhood where I grew up.) Girl Scouts were doers at a time and in a climate where girls were not allowed to do much of anything. And yet scouting was unique in that Girl Scouts received approbation for their forays outside the straitened realm of 1960s girlhood. Scouting gave an imprimatur to adventures and experiences that would otherwise be deemed unladylike.

Yet beyond my interest in this quest for adventure, where even the scary prospect of being lost in the woods and subject to bear attacks seemed preferable to the stultifying choices proffered to me as a young girl, was the lure of the camaraderie that seemed unique and even vital to scouting. In my youth, a key element of the socialization of girls included being instilled with a wariness of other girls/women. Girls/women would not be competing for jobs or any of the things boys/men competed for in society; rather, we would be competing for boys/men themselves, because our ultimate goal remained securing the right man and raising a family with him. Thus other girls/women had to be kept somewhat at arm’s length. For example, in the Archie comic books that were so popular when I was in grade school and junior high, the male characters—regardless of class or intellectual differences—were friends, they hung out together, their camaraderie in being male superseded everything else, including their relationships with and competition for girls. But the girls in these comics were forever baiting each other, in competition for the ultimate life prize—a man—unable to truly share friendship because that wariness of other females had been instilled in them. They were socialized to be