Léo Fitzpatrick needed a flag.

The 11-year-old scout had already created trail markers, tied a sheepshank knot and reviewed a lesson about the nation’s capital.

But on the last Sunday in June, under a Ringwood pavilion near the Norvin Green State Forest, he also needed to show that he could fold a flag into a tight triangle. He was a new scout, which meant his neckerchief was white, and he needed to pass a few more tests to earn a yellow and blue one.

Fitzpatrick’s scoutmaster, Micah Best, asked his wife and co-leader if they had an American flag nearby.

“I have a rainbow flag,” Jen Best said.

Soon after, the boy was a Tenderfoot.

Fitzpatrick is part of the first, and so far only New Jersey chapter of the Baden-Powell Service Association, a relatively new scouting organization that can be simultaneously more traditional and more progressive than more established groups.

Léo Fitzpatrick, 11, runs to make trail markers with rocks during a gathering of the NJ chapter of the Baden-Powell Service Association in Ringwood on June 30, 2019.Alexandra Pais | For NJ Advance

On the one hand, the BPSA eschews modernity. Badges test heavily for outdoor skills. Scout leaders sometimes wear the same campaign hats that Snoopy wore decades ago, and the entire operation sticks closely to the writings of Robert Baden-Powell, a British war hero born in 1857 who believed in camping and community service.

At the same time, groups generally don’t separate boys and girls. Uniforms and oaths don’t differentiate by gender. Transgender and non-binary kids are welcomed by the fact that the BPSA doesn’t ask for someone’s gender identity when they sign up.

“It’s a break for those families used to checking the ‘other’ box on applications,” said Kristen Klever, chief commissioner of the national organization.

The BPSA has grown in recent years. In 2013, when it was formally established as a nonprofit in Missouri, it had four groups with just over two-dozen members.

Today, Klever counts 60 groups with more than 2,300 participants nationwide.

The New Jersey chapter started two years ago. Fitzpatrick’s mom, Noémi Giszpenc, said she was invited to join by their rabbi. At their first campfire, she noted that her son’s patrol leader was a little blonde girl who could make fire better than anyone else. Giszpenc liked that.

The question of who gets to join what group has been with scouting since the beginning.

Pathfinder scoutmaster Micah Best reviews the knot lesson during a gathering of the NJ chapter of the Baden-Powell Service Association in Ringwood on June 30, 2019.Alexandra Pais | For NJ Advance

In 1908, the real-life Baden-Powell published a book called “Scouting for Boys,” where he drew upon his military experience to cast a vision for how young men should act as citizens and outdoorsmen. The book took off, and the next year he organized a rally.

A group of girls snuck in. Baden-Powell confronted them, according to an account later published by The Guardian, and the girls said they wanted to join.

“That’s impossible,” Baden-Powell reportedly said. “This is only for the boys.”

The girls pressed their case. Baden-Powell relented, and today both the Boy Scouts of America and the Girl Scouts of the United States of America can trace their roots back to that book and rally.

Gender, however, has remained a flashpoint. In 2017, a Secaucus boy became the first openly transgender Cub Scout after the Boy Scouts changed its acceptance policy, a shift that followed years of controversy over whether the group would allow gay members or leaders. Last year, the Girl Scouts sued the Boy Scouts after the latter announced plans to recruit girls.

If Baden-Powell’s writing counts as scouting’s Scripture, the three groups are like denominations differing in how the text should be applied to the modern world.

BPSA leaders emphasized that they don’t see themselves in competition with the Boy or Girl Scouts, which remain dramatically larger. (The two have a combined youth membership of more than 4 million, according to recent annual reports.) Micah Best, who volunteered with the Boy Scouts before he helped start the BPSA in New Jersey with his wife, said he counted other scouting organizations as “siblings.”

Jen Best, the group scoutmaster, said the Boy Scout’s initial exclusion of the transgender boy from Secaucus drove her to launch the BPSA locally. She also spoke positively about her past experiences with the Girl Scouts.

"Growing up, I loved scouting, she said. “I want this option open for anyone.”

The BPSA’s leaders are volunteers. Public tax documents from 2017 showed that top officials took no salaries, and the nonprofit as a whole only listed about $22,000 in assets. The Bests said they ask each scout to pay around $100 a year to cover expenses, but they said they’ve created scholarships and payment plans to help families tight on cash.

Oregon, where the group is headquartered, accounts for about a quarter of BPSA’s membership. The organization also reported sizable groups in Brooklyn and Austin.

Blake Nelson can be reached at bnelson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BCunninghamN.

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