Trans Girl Scouts Sell Over 71,000 Cookie Boxes in Viral Annual Fundraiser Campaign

A grassroots cookie sales campaign has delivered an unexpected surge of support to nearly 200 transgender and non-binary Girl Scouts across the United States, with collective sales surpassing 71,000 boxes in just three weeks.

The annual Girl Scout cookie drive, which runs between January and April and typically generates over $800 million nationally, became a vehicle for solidarity when journalist and author Erin Reed published her 2026 curated list of transgender scouts on January 22. Reed, 36, who has championed this initiative since 2022, encouraged readers with a simple message: "This year, consider ordering your Girl Scout cookies from a trans girl scout to make their day."

The response was immediate and overwhelming. By January 24, scouts on Reed's list had sold 71,254 boxes priced at $6 each, generating an estimated minimum of $427,524 in fundraising revenue. For the scouts and their families, the impact extended far beyond financial metrics.

Parents and scouts reported profound emotional responses to the campaign's success. Many young people expressed shock at the volume of support from strangers, with families describing the experience as a rare source of joy during a particularly difficult period. Reed reflected on this dimension in her January 22 blog post, noting: "Transgender youth in the United States are under extraordinary pressure right now. Many have lost access to health care as hospitals capitulate to the Trump administration, while others face constant hostility from political leaders in their own communities."

The scouts featured in Reed's list represent diverse ages and goals. Coral, a seven-year-old trans girl in her first cookie season, is fundraising with her Daisy troop to donate food to an animal shelter. Eli, a 14-year-old nonbinary scout, is raising funds for a Silver Award project creating a fidget library for neurodivergent students at their school. Troop 350064, a trans immigrant troop in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, requested cookie purchases and donations to support neighbors and community members while unable to conduct traditional cookie booth sales for safety reasons.

The campaign arrives amid heightened scrutiny of transgender youth rights internationally. In December 2025, the UK scouting organization announced that transgender girls would no longer be permitted to be members—a decision that sparked widespread criticism. Against that backdrop, the U.S. Girl Scout campaign demonstrates the power of institutional inclusion and community solidarity.

Reed began curating the list in 2022 after discovering that Girl Scouts of the USA's inclusion policy explicitly welcomes transgender youth as members. What began as a familiar annual fundraising tradition has, for these scouts, become something deeper: tangible evidence that they are seen, valued, and cared for by people across the country.