Lesbian Life: Giving blood

By Anna McFaith on Friday, February 4, 2011 - 00:18

I like to do good things. Help others. Give back.

I currently don’t have time for any other volunteer work and my bank balance won’t allow me to spend any more money on worthy causes so I decided on a new approach; I’m going to give blood. Actually, it took a little longer and the journey to self-sacrifice was a little more disturbing.

I’m slightly terrified of giving blood. Starting out I didn’t know how the procedure went and what I needed to do in order to be allowed to give blood. So, instead of researching things myself, I put my questions on a forum I frequent and asked for anyone who had ever given blood to talk me through it. I thought that the whole procedure would be standardized in the western world. I was only half right.

You can only give blood a couple of times a year, you can’t have any diseases transmittable by blood (naturally) and you need to be over a certain weight and age. Then one of the girls on the forum said the following:

They ask about your sexual history - LGB people aren't allowed to donate and neither are their partners.

Excuse me, what now?! Just reading that nearly made me choke with anger. Before judging, however, I did go on a research spree. Apparently it’s true; there are restrictions on blood donation if you’re LGB. If you’re a man who has ever slept with a man, you can’t give blood and if you are a woman who has ever slept with a man who has slept with a man, you can’t donate either. Why?

The FDA says it’s “because [men who sleep with men] are, as a group, at increased risk for HIV, hepatitis B and certain other infections that can be transmitted by transfusion.” So what about those gay men in a committed, monogamous, relationship? Why can’t they donate if they have been checked out? The FDA has an explanation.

Having had a low number of partners is known to decrease the risk of HIV infection. However, to date, no donor eligibility questions have been shown to reliably identify a subset of MSM (e.g., based on monogamy or safe sexual practices) who do not still have a substantially increased rate of HIV infection compared to the general population or currently accepted blood donors. In the future, improved questionnaires may be helpful to better select safe donors, but this cannot be assumed without evidence.

Seriously, is the stereotype of the gay man who sleeps around so prevalent that it justifies a clearly discriminatory law?

Oh - but that is where I’m wrong according to those making the laws. It’s not discrimination. No, because they put a ban on behavior, not sexual preference. By saying ‘men who sleep with men’ it’s not discrimination on the basis of sexual preference, it’s merely a listing of unsafe behavior. What makes this okay and why didn’t I know about this? Why doesn’t everyone know about this?!

Women who sleep with women are a different thing altogether. We sometimes have the right to donate, sometimes we don’t. The umbrella organization of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands has decided women who sleep with women are safe to donate. In the United States, they’re often not. Why? I don’t know. It’s not the health thing, I think. There was nothing I could find on that. I think it’s just because it’s also a form of homosexuality and since the men were already banned, the women would be too. It’s only fair, after all.