The American Red Cross is now allowing gay and bisexual men to donate blood without restrictions that specifically single out a person’s sexual orientation or gender, the nonprofit group said Monday.
And it only took… *checks notes* 40 years!
Technically still waiting on it to happen. If you’ve had anal sex, you still have to wait 3 months. So they are still discriminating against most MSM.
No, it isn’t. Anal sex is a known high risk factor for STDs and infections. It also applies to everyone, not just gay/bi men.
For a lot of these people their (secular) religion is erasing real-world group differences. The fact that you can (whatever your sexual orientation) regularly engage in anal sex, and therefore be at a higher-risk of contracting STIs for physiological reasons, and therefore not be eligible to donate blood—and still be a good person is beyond their ability to square.
If we value your personhood equally then there must be no substantive physiological differences between you and anybody else.
Yes, it’s entirely about what you do, not what you are. Nothing to do with identity, only practice. This seems to be very hard for younger people to grasp, because increasingly society seems to conflate the two. That’s not particularly meant as an accusation, just an observation.
Theoretically, it applies to everyone. The anti-sodomy laws also technically applied to everyone, but were only enforced against the LGBT community.
It is good that now they will at least screening those who have heterosexual intercourse, but most MSM still won’t be able to donate with the various restrictions. Only MSM in a long-term relationship will be able to donate.
I can understand the biological reason for not allowing certain medications to avoid complications. However, they could still take blood and just keep it separate just as plasma centers that take MSM plasma do. If there really is a shortage, they should be taking everything being offered.
Not really, it specifies “new partners,” which is completely fair. People lie, and it allows time for symptoms to show up so the red cross doesn’t end up wasting resources. I don’t really know how they’d work out polycules unless they add a monogamous restriction. The three months it’s about safety since they are dealing with blood.
You know why it started, right?
You know HIV has been screenable for most of those 40 years, right?
A lot of haemophiliacs got HIV. I don’t blame them for making a policy decision.
Again, it has been screenable for decades. Just like many other blood-borne diseases. Why single out HIV as if it is impossible to filter out of the supply?
Why single out HIV as if it is impossible to filter out of the supply?
Screening accuracy is lightyears better today than it was decades ago.
Also, many things on the screening test won’t kill you in the event of a false negative on screening. A false negative for HIV screening meant a certain death sentence for the recipient, and that was true until just a few years ago.
Why single out HIV
HIV never was ‘singled out’. There are numerous other behaviors and activities that disqualify a potential donor that have nothing to do with HIV.
A false negative for HIV screening meant a certain death sentence for the recipient, and that was true until just a few years ago.
Are you for fucking real? Don’t pretend it’s not still a life shattering disease.
You can’t just say, “oh well, it’s not as bad as it used to be.” There’s a vast spectrum between “it won’t kill you” and “it’s a total nothingburger” (wow, does that ever sound familiar). Now you’re immunocompromised, something you definitely do not want in this day and age. Now you risk passing it onto partners and children. Now your quality of life is degraded decades earlier than it otherwise would be.
Now imagine you contracted it, not because you voluntarily engaged in behaviors and you knew the risks, but because you received life-saving medical care. Then imagine learning it might have been prevented if the organization responsible was concerned with pandering to sexual identity politics than ensuring product safety.
This is, and has always been, about safety. Screening has improved. Research has provided more data on prevention and monitoring. They wouldn’t have changed the policies otherwise.
So…you agree with my position that Red Cross had good reason for the ban for the past several decades but choose to attack me because my argument wasn’t vicious enough? I think you arguing with the wrong person here, tbh.
It absolutely was singled out. You have to specifically say you haven’t had gay sex when you donate blood. I’ve done it plenty of times.
“Singled out” implies that that it stood alone as the only behavior that was screened for. But that’s not the case. There always have been and still are numerous other behaviors and activities screened for and denied.
To be a bigot? And to discriminate? That’s your rationale to ban people?
I’m gay.
So am I. Still don’t think a blanket ban on the LGBT was the right call
They phrased it “men who have sex with men” because that was - and is - undeniably a huge risk factor in the transmission of HIV. It was an unprecedented public health emergency and I don’t think people nowadays quite understand how severe it was. Which is great, really, we’ve come such a long way.
Communication infrastructure was nothing like it is today either, there was a real absence of information and people were extremely scared, especially gay men watching their friends die. A blanket ban was the only sane thing to do in the circumstances.
Did it need to persist so long, perhaps not, but even 20 years ago AIDS was much less preventable and treatable than it is today. And the gears of bureaucracy turn extremely slowly at the best of times.
As someone else has pointed out, this is far from the only group excluded from the donor pool. It’s not a moral judgment, just a screening heuristic at the demographic level. That’s how things have to operate at the level of public services; i.e. population-level policy.
I agree. As I said in another comment, the book And The Band Played On is a great history of the AIDS epidemic in the USA and really hammers home just how devestating it was to gay men. It’s a fact that gay men are the major risk group in the West for HIV transmission. Heterosexual sex is much less likely to spread it compared to anal sex. There was a lot of mismanagement of it, but screening was a good idea, when it was finally introduced.
Goddammit! I have o- blood and the red cross called me LITERALLY everyday after I donated the first time. I asked them to only call every quarter because I still did want to donate, but that just made them call every other day. Finally out of frustration I looked for anything that would make me ineligible to donate and the next time they called, I told them I was gay. All calls stopped after that.
I found that making an appointment, no matter how far in the future makes them stop calling.
I donate plasma (AB+) as often as I can, usually 2 weekly as that is the limit here. But if you’re single the 4 month halt for having sex with a new partner is annoying because they will keep calling while they say you can’t donate.
Maybe donate your highly sought after blood and they won’t call so much
How about they not call every single day when you’re only allowed to donate every couple months or so or, you know, you’d fucking die
What if I were to tell you they don’t call unless you’re eligible to donate again?
(Also I just blocked them because I donate when I feel like and don’t need reminders)
Hi! I do just want to be clear that this was multiple months of calls and I did explain to multiple people that I have donated too recently for me to be eligible. This did not stop them from calling me again the very next day. Trust me, saying ‘I have had gay sex recently’ to blood donation associate was mortifying, if I had any other option I had already tried it.
Well that sounds like their internal systems suck. Here in Austria they have a robust database that sends me a SMS as soon as the waiting period is over from my last donation. It’s one SMS saying “you can donate again”, and that’s it. If I dont do it, they’ll call after a while. But never would they contact me while in the waiting period.
Did you even read the op
Yes, and they’re not calling you every single day. I’m also O-.
You go the couple months and then they spam you to schedule an appointment.
Or you do doubles and they don’t bother you for another four months… It’s beautiful.
I’ve even done doubles before! I’m glad that they aren’t pestering you, but that was not my experience. As another commenter said I don’t know if it was a problem with the system or what, but they contacted me repeatedly, even after I pointed out that I was ineligible to donate.
My mother’s been a volunteer for forever and she said to try this:
Apparently the people that call are a contracted phone bank, and don’t necessarily care if you’re not actually eligible, they get their money by the call.
Trust me, this method did not work. I have donated blood 10+ times (Which isn’t a crazy amount, but I think it’s probably more than most people) because I know with universal donor blood it’s really valuable. But when you donated blood yesterday and they call you wanting more it can get pretty annoying…
Great, now I can move forward with my plan of turning everyone gay by donating blood
Convert 10 or more and you get a new toaster oven!
God speed 🫡
Can I just get a little blood? I don’t want to go full gay, I just want to be able to tell which sneakers I should wear with this outfit.
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Not to worry, I’m working on a gay blood donation scheme that should fix that right up for you.
I’m gay as fuck and have no idea how to dress
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Cue right wingers refusing transfusions. Actually, that’s fine.
Blood is blood is blood. I’m sure that people who need it don’t care if an absolute bigoted moron gave it to them, they wouldn’t know anyways.
Edit: I’m the moron, you meant refusing taking blood, not giving it lmao
We should make it known to these people that it’s ‘gay blood’ though. What they do with their own body is up to them because I support bodily autonomy, including dying of bigotry.
The rule was very necessary in the 80s. It vast majority of HIV-infected individuals were gay and bisexual men. However, those days are long gone, and we can test blood pretty well for even very low levels of HIV nowadays.
Are youIn 2006, the AABB, American Red Cross, and America’s Blood Centers all supported a change from the current US policy of a lifetime deferral of MSM to one year since most recent contact. One model suggested that this change would result in one additional case of HIV transmitted by transfusion every 32.8 years. The AABB has suggested making this change since 1997. The FDA did not accept the proposal and had concerns about the data used to produce the model, citing that additional risk to recipients was not justified. Source
We are well past the 80s and decades behind something that should have. Been corrected a long time ago. The systemic discrimination towards gay men is apparent when you look at EU models of deferment compared to the US.
Maybe this is a cynical take, but will conservatives refuse a life saving blood transfusion because it may have come from a gasp gay man? I mean a bunch were refusing transfusions because the blood could have come from someone that had a gasp covid vaccine.
There are people who refuse blood transfusions because of relious beliefs and will let their children die. Of course there are some that would refuse “gay blood.”
That sounds almost like the intention?
If they want to do that, fine. They just won’t get any blood or blood products.
Problem solved.
Frankly dude, the amount of people, even fairly right-wing people who will be preoccupied with this is teeny tiny. I’m sure they exist but it’s a negligible amount of people. The person obsessed with stereotyping these people is you.
Conservatives might be getting some of that gay blood. Does that work the same as eating the heart of a warrior to gain their power?
Yes, but instead of becoming more powerful, you become more fabulous.
Sign me up! Sound like A-positive to me!
Unless you’re someone who tends to B-negative anyway.
Under the new guidelines, anyone who has recently had sex with a new partner or multiple people and has also had anal sex would have to wait three months to donate
Those taking oral medication to prevent HIV infection, called pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, still have to wait three months from their last dose to donate blood. People taking long-acting PrEP injections have to wait two years before donating.
Darn, so straight people having anal raw dog gang bangs can no longer donate soon after experiencing a DVDA? How is that fair? /s
Also note that the Red Cross is usually quick to say it’s actually the FDA that imposes these homophobic restrictions and it’s “not their fault”
They said the same thing in Austria: “not our fault, the government agencies make these rules!”
And the government agencies would be like “well, we want to change the rules, but the Red Cross tells us not to!”
Took us to have a left-wing green health minister to pressure them enough.
The finally implemented the changes last year, sounds like it is 1:1 the same rules like you guys have now.
Literally can’t even believe that was a thing!
I think it was set up when AIDS was spreading amongst the gay community before they had a test for it.
Of course, now they can both test for it and it spread well beyond the gay community for a while so it’s ridiculous that it was still a thing.
They just removed restrictions for Brits that were in the UK between 1980-1996 too, so I guess they’re just getting around to opening things up and this was on the list.
Is the UK 1980-96 thing being removed too? That’s cool.
Not just brits btw, but anyone who spent an extended time in the UK in the 80s/90s. IRC due to fears about CJD/Mad Cow’s Disease.
I was stationed in UK and couldn’t donate blood as a result. That was only ten years ago. Since they opened it back up I am getting constant calls to donate.
Why? AIDS was a devestating epidemic. The blood banks were slow to act at all, and as a result many haemophiliacs acquired the disease and died. Gay men were the largest risk group for spreading and contracting it, so it makes sense to screen them out.
It made sense in a crisis situation 40 years ago. It made zero sense the last few years to have such a discriminatory rule that also neglected to prevent risk from heterosexual anal sex.
In my country gay men account for 90% of all HIV infections. It’s very hard to ensure blood is free of HIV, as blood is infectious within three months of infection but won’t test positive
I didn’t know that was still in place, since they started testing for AIDS decades ago.
About time
I didn’t even know that was happening!
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It wasn’t BS, it was required at a time when AIDS was a near-certain death sentence.
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In 2023. Unbelievable.
how the hell have we reached a point as a society where people would rather literally fucking die than get life saving blood from someone who thinks differently from them?
This started off when HIV was much more prominent in the gay and bisexual male population than anyone else. The Red Cross, among other organizations, decided it was better to just deny blood from gay and bi males than to check all their samples for HIV. Similarly, you can’t give blood if you were in certain locations in the '80s and '90s due to potential exposure to Mad Cow Disease. At this point, while HIV is still somewhat more prevalent in that demographic, rates have gone down significantly and HIV has spread to the other demographics. It’s also easier to test for than it was then. Repealing these restrictions was proposed quite some time ago and didn’t face any real pushback, but bureaucracy is going to bureaucracy, so it’s taken years to get this settled.
It wasn’t the Red Cross, it was the FDA. This article phrases it as the Red Cross loosening restrictions because the FDA ended the ban in May, and the Red Cross’s own procedural bureaucracy is just now catching up.
Person who lived in Europe in the early 90s here. Couldn’t give blood until earlier this year due to the Mad Cow restrictions.
Bigots just assume the blood is always gonna be there. They don’t think as deeply as you credit them for
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Lol. Healthiest worldview.
Must be fun in your head
I wonder if homophobes will suddenly turn gay after a blood transfusion? /s
Bro that’s not it. It was about AIDS having spread throughout the gay community before testing was feasible.
Testing methods are still inadequate, as blood may test negative whilst infectious in the first three months
