On banning gay & bi men from giving blood.

I have spoke before on the habit of most nations to ban gay men from donating blood.  But to remind people – as it stands currently in the UK:

Heterosexual man who has unprotected sex with a different woman every night: CAN GIVE BLOOD NOW
Heterosexual man who has unprotected sex with a woman he KNOWS has HIV: CAN GIVE BLOOD so long as he doesn’t think he has the disease
Heterosexual man who has unprotected sex with several prostitutes: CAN GIVE BLOOD AFTER 1 YEAR
Those who have had unprotected sex with an intravenous drug user: CAN GIVE BLOOD AFTER ONE YEAR
Those who have had unprotected sex abroad in a high risk HIV country: CAN GIVE BLOOD AFTER ONE YEAR

A gay or bi man who has oral sex with a condom, once?:  Can never ever ever give blood. EVER.

It’s not much better in most other western nations. And this matters. Yes it does.

It matters because the blood banks are constantly screaming at us for more blood and they are refusing millions of potential donors.

It matters on a personal note it gave me no small amount of hell because my mother gave blood, my father gave blood, my brother gives blood – my whole damn family gives blood. I was raised to believe that giving blood is one of the basic duties everyone owes. And they turned to me and asked why I wasn’t. what could I say, without coming out? For that matter, even being out, I don’t think I’d want to reveal to my parents the exact moment when I lost my virginity. I mean “yeah can give blood last time and I gave blood the time before but I can’t give blood now because I’m sucking dick now” is not a conversation I think many people want to have with their parents.

It matters because AIDS can hit ANYONE. AIDS is not a gay disease. AIDS is not something straight people can ignore. AIDS is something everyone needs to be aware of. And the last thing we need is MEDICAL EXPERTS like the NHS and the Red Cross encouraging this idea that AIDS is only a problem for gay and bisexual men. This is important, people are getting MORE ignorant about the dangers of AIDS, not less. We do not need authorities to be encouraging such foolishly.

And it matters because it is pure bigotry. Blood is screened. Heterosexuals can and do carry AIDS. We know this. It is beyond the vaguest imagining of logic to believe that a promiscuous heterosexual who doesn’t use contraception is in any way “safer” than a celibate gay man who had sex once 20 years ago. But that is what the rules now says. The rules now say that that heterosexual man who has lost count of his sexual partners this week and doesn’t even know what a condom is – is STILL safer than a celibate or monogamous gay man. Because the gay man has had sex with a man. Once. Decades ago. Or only one man. It doesn’t matter – gay and bi men are the risk.

And that is homophobia. There is no other logical reason for it. No amount of arguing about the greater percentage of gay men with AIDS matches up against the utterly cavalier way we treat the blood of straight people. No amount of precautious justifies a lifetime ban for a man who has sex with another man. That one act renders you eternally tainted. That is not about infection, that is not about health, that is not about the (screened, remember) blood supply. It’s not about keeping people safe. That is about homophobia. That is about keeping the icky icky gay blood out of pure and righteous straight veins.

We do not need major health authorities telling the public, the world, that gay and bi men are inherently unclean. We do not need major health authorities telling people that a man having sex with another man is something that will taint you for the rest of your life. We do not need these messages, we do not need to be told that our sex is inherently wrong and dangerous, that our blood so polluted that it cannot be allowed into the blood supply.

We do not deserve that – and we cannot underestimate the damage it does.