I was trolling the interwebs today and stumbled across a message a stranger wrote in response to a Facebook post by George Takei asking us to sign a petition:
So just over a year ago my husband got the call for a pancreas transplant (he's Type 1 diabetic, the transplant ended up not happening for other reasons but anyway) and the dr came into the room and said "By law I'm required to let you know of some history of the pancreas and you're free to accept or reject the pancreas without jeopardizing your spot in line." then he went on to say that the donor was a homosexual man, had been in a monogamous relationship for several years with a man blah blah blah. Of course my husband was like "So?"
I flat out asked the dr "So you're alerting us for a gay man but would you get any information if it was a guy who had 500 female partners in the last 6 months or engaged in risky sex with prostitutes at the truck stop?" the dr laughed and said "Nope, wouldn't get or release that information...it's pretty messed up isn't it?"
Isn't that DISGUSTING?
That IS disgusting. More than 30 years since the outbreak of AIDS and HIV in America, despite all the scientific research and data to back it up, homosexual men specifically are not allowed to donate blood. How many more cases are like the one above? There was the gay man whose entire company donated blood, yet he wasn't allowed to: completely ostracizing him from his co-workers and outing him as homosexual when he had chosen to stay in the closet at work. Or the man who was asked if he had ever prostituted himself because he is gay and wanted to donate blood.
The American Medical Association voted to end the ban in 2013, partially due to extreme new lows in the nation's supply, but also because they lacked scientific evidence of gay men putting the blood supply at risk. Maybe the costs of testing the blood is too high, but if that is the case, shouldn't we all be worried about getting tainted blood that is not completely being tested by the FDA/CDC?
The American Red Cross, America’s Blood Centers, and Advancing Transfusion and Cellular Therapies Worldwide stated in a joint release in 2006 “that the current lifetime deferral for men who have had sex with other men is medically and scientifically unwarranted.” In a day and age where lgbtqia people are fighting for recognition and acceptance, blood donation denial is still a huge setback and a reality of the fact that gay men are labeled today as second class citizens.
There is an online petition that I would love for anyone and everyone reading this to sign. It is asking the White House and President Obama to intervene in this case and end this discriminatory policy. You can copy and paste the link below or you can check out George Takei's FB page or my own for a direct link.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/call-hhs-fda-end-their-ban-against-gay-bisexual-male-blood-donors/7mcCpPxl
Thanks for reading. Sometimes blood is thicker than water.
