Agesci Scouts, remove sexual orientation from selection criteria for educational roles

Sexual orientation and gender identity cannot be an exclusion criterion for those who ask to play an educational role in an association. This is stated by the Association of Italian Catholic Guides and Scouts (Agesci) in the document Gender identity and sexual and affective orientation approved by their council.

Agesci has matured the conviction that in the profile of the Christian educator leader, affective orientation and gender identity cannot constitute criteria of exclusion in the discernment that the leader communities are called upon to exercise when an adult person asks to join the association to carry out an educational role,' reads the document, as reported by Ansa.

The premise is that according to "the pedagogy of welcome, rooted in the daily life of our educational service" it is "essential to promote paths aimed at overcoming homophobic feelings and attitudes. Such feelings, in fact, constitute an obstacle to recognition, inclusion and integration in our Groups, and at all levels of association, of leaders and leaders, boys and girls".

Agesci recalls that this reflection had begun with the General Council of 2022. The association had been entrusted with "the mandate to start up paths capable of creating spaces and opportunities for listening addressed to Lgbtqia+ people - leaders, boys and girls, present or already out of the Association - as well as to the Leaders' Communities, families, Zones and Regions, gathering reflections and testimonies from all sides".

And 'in keeping with our scouting style,' the document goes on to say, 'this journey began by listening to the people who live associative life on a daily basis, recognising their experiences as an essential starting point.