Jacob Kirsch
In 1983, a ban took place against men who had
sex with men, also known as MSM, to give blood. According to GMHC.org, a
movement to fight aids, the ban was carried out to, “to help prevent
inadvertent transmission of HIV through blood transfusions. At that time,
HIV/AIDS was largely not understood by doctors, scientists, and the general
public, and the technology and procedures used to test donated blood for HIV
were extremely limited.” The ban is on any man who has had sex with another man
since 1977, even if the man who wants to donate is HIV negative, always practices
safe sex, and even has been in a monogamous relationship for most of their life
and has never had intercourse with anyone but their male partner. This ban is
completely outdated, and is a huge form of discrimination towards these men.
Some transgender woman are also affected by this as the ban is against birth
sex and not gender.
This
ban is a huge form of discrimination to these people by not letting them be a
part of an activity that helps people and saves lives everywhere. With the
incredible advances we have been making in the world of medicine, donated blood
is tested for a lot of diseases such as syphilis, HIV, hepatitis, and HTLV
(human T-lymphotropic virus). Since this ban has not been brought to light
since 1977, the FDA has not considered all of the advances in the world of
medicine to remove this ban.
This ban is also discriminatory
because of the stereotypes it can create. According to GMHC.org this ban
creates lots of negative stereotypes for LGBT+ birth assigned males, for
example, that heterosexual people have an extremely low risk to the virus,
while saying that LGBT birth assigned men are at a hugely horrifying risk for
it. Another stereotype that can be created is that these men are
Another
way this ban seems to be a clear form of discrimination is that women who have
had sex with a MSM man is able to donate blood (FDA forum/wiki article?). Women
who have sex with MSM men are able to donate blood a year after having sexual
intercourse with a MSM male, yet even a man who’s been in a monogamous
relationship since the seventies with their partner who has not had sex with
anyone but him and are both people who have taken an HIV test that came back
negative are not able to donate a drop of blood. Why should a woman or a
straight man who’s had unprotected sexual intercourse with an array of partners
be able to donate blood while these LGBT+ birth assigned males are not?
A lot
of questions come up in response to argument, a question that is very popular
is this one, “what if a man or transgender woman who has had sex with a man
lies about having HIV when the ban is lifted?” This question has an easy answer,
HIV tests. Technically anyone can lie about their HIV status, but since clinics
and blood drives do HIV tests on donated blood, this is not a problem. When
donating blood you’re supposed to fill out a form by the FDA, in which you have
to disclose your gender and depending on your birth assigned gender whether or
not you’ve had sex with another man, (FDA forum). So whatever a person’s sex is
or whatever their sexual orientation is, if they lie about being HIV negative,
they will be caught. If this ban was lifted there would be the no problems, or
the same problems that people who are able to donate blood have now. Other
arguments could come up that are homophobic, such as saying, “it’s bad to be
homosexual so it’s bad for them to donate blood” These stances and views are
completely bias. Medically, lifting this ban would only help people and save
lives
Overall,
the ban could actually be hurting the whole point to blood drives and blood
donations, to give blood to people who need it. GMHC.org states that, “There is
strong opposition to blood drives at many colleges, which only serves to reduce
the blood supply. For example, San Jose State University does not allow blood
drives on campus because the ban violates the university’s nondiscrimination
policies.” Even how some colleges aren’t allowed to do blood drives because it
violates their nondiscrimination polices shows how this is a huge form of
discrimination. Another way this ban hurts the whole point of blood drives and
blood donations is how much they lose from not letting LGBT+ birth assigned MSM
males donate. The whole essence of blood donations could be hurt by how much
blood could be received from LGBT+ birth assigned men. Going back to GMHC.org,
“according to one estimate, over 130,000 gay and bisexual men from donating
over 219,000 pints of blood annually. “ A graph from The Huffington Post
created by The Williams Institute at the University of California that studies
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, etc issues confirms this estimate.
This
graph shows the number of men likely to donate that would not have been able to
before and the number of pints of blood likely to be donated with three
scenarios, from left to right, if the ban was lifted for LGBT+ birth assigned
men, if there was a twelve month deferral from donating meaning that they would
have to wait a whole year after having sexual intercourse, and the last
scenario shows the data after a five year deferral from donating. According to
The Huffington Post, the FDA is recommending that it be changed to the twelve
month deferral as stated, and each person who donates blood would have to have
other evidence (which from all the evidence brings me to believe that it will
be an HIV test).
This
topic is something that needs more awareness for everyone, especially LGBT+
people and LGBT+ allies. There is lots of evidence proving that we can safely
allow LGBT+ birth assigned men to donate blood that will help millions of
people all around the United States, so why not do it? Yes, the FDA has made
some strides to help, for example, the one year deferral stated above, and yes
this has had some awareness, for example, The Gay Blood Drive. This
organization focuses on trying to make people aware of this outdated ban and
how it focuses purely on “sexual orientation instead of sexual behavior and
personal risk” (which if I have not mentioned before, is a huge form of
discrimination.) They have a huge blood drive in different places around the
US, and have an LGBT+ birth assigned male bring an ally to donate for them to
show their willingness. They will write a message to the FDA and have their
ally put on a nametag, they will then take a picture of the two people with the
nametag and message, and then send the picture, nametag, and message to the
FDA. At their last blood drive, over 1500 eligible allies donated, and over
1500 LGBT+ birth assigned men participated. This organization spreads the word
of the ban that if lifted, could save a large number of lives. Even though this
issue does have awareness, we need more to make the change.
Overall,
this ban has evidence against it that proves it to be outdated. We can do tons
of tests to make sure that these men and transgender women are clean and ok to
give blood which could saves tons of lives. Even though the FDA has been making
certain efforts to change it, they don’t seem to be thinking about the reality
of the ban and what it is preventing. We need to bring more awareness to this
issue with more organizations such as the Gay Blood Drive. I hope this paper
made you aware of this problem and how it affects almost everyone. If this ban is
lifted, we will be able to save an incredible amount of lives.
https://www.mskcc.org/about/get-involved/donating-blood/after-blood-donation
(This is still a rough draft. I need to put my citations in the correct places :D )
