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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   2073 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 18, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Via evolving parenthood experience, it's recently come to my attention that the Boy Scouts no longer exist, but rather a co-ed institution called "Scouting America". Boys and girls welcomed equally. No scout troop for males only.

Girl Scouts? Same as it ever was. Girls only.

How is this not a layup discrimination lawsuit? I can't even find any online discourse about it; any attempt to Google the topic simply directs me to the scouts "anti-discrimination" efforts.

edit: I was tragically unaware that Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are two independent organizations. The naming structure led me to assume that they operated under a common parent organization, and we all know what happens when you assume...

Many anti-discrimination laws have carve-outs with reasonings like "to redress historical injustices" etc., which is how womens' groups of all kinds remain legal.

Technically, aren't most of these groups private clubs, who can be as discriminatory as they like? You can have your white men’s club just as much as you want(although dues are likely well beyond your price range).

You can have your white men’s club just as much as you want

Ha. Good one.

They literally exist. Many fraternities and unions are this in practice, a few country clubs maintain it as explicit policy, and of course there’s the hells angels.

a few country clubs maintain it as explicit policy

which ones?

there’s the hells angels

no, the hell's angels are not explicitly whites only

Most outlaw biker clubs took the "whites only" language out of their charters back in the 90s when they realized half their members (and approximately all of their wives) were actually Mexican. I doubt the Hell's Angels still have it in there, but there are probably a few still around with the old rules.

you base this on what?

my limited experience is talking to a client of mine who ran in that scene; the mexicans were with other clubs and gangs which they feuded with

when you're at the point where you're trying to come up with examples for "white men's clubs" existing and you come up with outlaw biker gangs and even then it's not true since the 90s, maybe we can just admit that explicitly white men's groups are de facto illegal and treated like criminals

I have an old friend who was a fully patched member of one of the larger California clubs in the 2000s/2010s who I got a lot of stories from. So I'm getting old timer lore secondhand, and things may have gone down very differently in different parts of the country, but it tracks with the demographics I've seen at the barbecues and whatnot I was invited to. And "never ask a white supremacist the race of his girlfriend" is a very old joke for a reason.

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