Although Taylor’s argument held some truth, it is overall weak and based on unenforced and irrelevant claims. She sounds more like she is trying to vilify the Girl Scout organization than the transgender scouts whom she is protesting. She starts off with “Girl Scouts is not being honest with us girls…” It’s probably about a minute into the video by the time she actually states the point of her argument, that people who are anatomically male should not be allowed in Girl Scouts.Although she goes to great lengths to attack the GSUSA organization for letting transgender children in, she seems to be afraid to directly attack transgender people, or even specify what she sees as wrong about being transgender, leaving her with the spineless cop-out of an argument: “There’s nothing wrong with them, but I don’t want them in my troop!”
Taylor’s always-informative text overlays such as “Transgender Girl Scout= boy who wants to be a girl”, and “boys reach puberty before 12th grade” really just weaken her argument by insulting the viewers’ intelligence. Her tone is similarly abrasive and matter-of-factly insulting to the point that I would be hard pressed to agree with her upon the most logical of arguments.
One of Taylor’s most-used attacks against GSUSA the claim that they have been dishonest by allowing transgender boys into troupes across the country, but I don’t see any proof or evidence that this information was withheld from the girls in these troupes and their parents. If she had cited some example of a horrified pair of right-winger parents who had no idea that there was a transgender child in their daughter’s troupe, or had been lied to about the presence of transgender children, then her accusation of dishonesty would be well-backed, but her focus on the GSUSA’s wrongdoings still circumvents her real moral objection against transgender kids.
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Counterintuitivity 
A formatting note:
Below the Edit Post box you’ll find a box called “Format” containing three selection buttons for Aside, Standard, and Gallery. I don’t know what they mean, but in the case of your post, Sam, unchecking the Aside choice in favor of the Standard choice gave us back your title and standardized your type size to match the rest of the blog.
In other WordPress themes, the choices would probably be more dramatic and useful. In ours, they were just minor and mystifying.
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“unenforced” claims?
Do you object to Taylor’s target? Do you mean it as a criticism that she picks her fight with the Scouts rather than with the transgender scouts they’ve admitted? I’m not sure I understand why.
I agree entirely that she avoids demonizing transgenders, or accusing them of being sinful, or calling them sick, or calling them lying boys who want to spy on naked girl scouts. Her intended audience needs no persuasion on these points, so she is wise to accept them as proved and spend her time, instead, to identify a target her allies can protest. We don’t object to the scouts being transgender; we object to the duplicity of the organization that hides them from us.
Punctuation Note: Rule 7. http://rucomp1.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/grammar-minimum-requirements/
Your paragraph on the text overlays is entertaining but not specifically responsive to the assignment, Sam. I grant you the analysis point for noticing that it’s not persuasive to insult your audience, but criticism of her tone only serves your own understandable desire to insult her back.
There’s a syntax problem in your “most-used attacks” sentence. Also, you’ve picked up the misspelling troupes from the blogger source.
I’m very impressed with the refutation that Taylor hasn’t provided any evidence of dishonesty, even lies of omission, at the troop level. She may believe in the validity of an unspoken claim, that her own troop might now include a closeted transgender, but she’d have to speak that claim to have any standing in this case. Without the reasonable suspicion that her own troop is hiding a boy, Taylor is not the person to be bringing this complaint. She has no damages.
In part, Sam, you’re engaging in an entirely illegitimate argument technique by refuting Taylor’s motivation instead of the validity of her claims, but there’s enough actual rebuttal and analysis in the rest of your entry that I will gladly allow you to vent about her if you wish.
Grade Recorded.
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The reason I criticize Taylor’s motivation is not merely to insult her. My point is that if there is nothing wrong with transgender girl scouts, then she really has nothing to protest about. Before she tries to convince me to boycott GSUSA for allowing transgenders, I should be told why they don’t belong there in the first place, or the entire argument will seem rather meaningless.
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It’s highly likely you’re not Taylor’s intended audience, Sam. Anyone who needs to be told what’s wrong with transgenders is beyond the reach of her persuasion. My personal theory is that Taylor’s video was never intended to convince a single person to boycott cookies. Instead, the boycott was chosen for its news value, to enliven the debate about transgenders, with the ultimate goal of driving traffic to the companion website and its broader agenda of exclusion politics.
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