Five Reasons the Gay Blood Ban Should Go

Ah, 1985. Billy Joel married Christie Brinkley. Nintendo was introduced. New Coke hit the market. And gay men were told that if they had sex with a man, they couldn't give blood in the United States.

Twenty-five years later, the marriage of Billy and Christie is history, Nintendo has been replaced by at least seven generations of video game upgrades, and New Coke was laughed off the market. But that ban on blood from gay men? It's alive and well.

What's not alive and well is the nation's blood supply, which continuously dips to dangerously low levels. Yet, a big chunk of potential donors -- gay men -- are still given the "Thanks, but no thanks" line from the federal government. Is momentum to do away with this ban finally gaining some traction?

Maybe, if the Gay Men's Health Center (GMHC) has their way. The GMHC is out with a pretty meaty report on why it's time to ditch the ban on blood from gay men. The report, "A Drive for Change: Reforming U.S. Blood Donation Policies," spells out the facts behind blood donations in the U.S., with a cry toward reforming the rules around blood donation.

"Across the country, we experience critical shortfalls of blood supplies on a consistent basis," said Janet Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at GMHC.  "Yet only five percent (or less) of Americans that are able to donate blood do so.  We call on the FDA to re-examine discriminatory policies that categorically exclude potential blood donors, including gay and bisexual men."

Holler that. Here are five good reasons why the ban on gay blood should head the direction of New Coke and vanish.

5. How Do You Spell Inconsistency?

The actual rule on the book for gay or bisexual men (or "men who have sex with men," depending on your terminology preference), is that if you've had sex with a man since The Mary Tyler Moore Show was airing first-run episodes on television (1977 to be exact), you can't give blood. No matter if you have never had a sexually-transmitted disease, if you haven't had sex since January 1, 1977, if you've been with the same partner for years -- all that aside, you still can't give blood. That puts gay men in the same league as prostitutes and intravenous drug users, who are forever banned. Oh, but who can give blood? According to GMHC, folks who have had sex with commercial sex workers (they have to wait a year, but after that they can give).

4. The Ban's History is So ... History

The ban on gay blood was written into law in 1985, at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis where science was playing catch up and the world was watching thousands of gay men die left and right. But this isn't 1985 anymore, and science -- to a large extent -- has caught up. In 1985, myths and misinformation about how HIV/AIDS could get contracted were par for the course. And while we still have eons to go in terms of HIV/AIDS awareness in this country (take note that one of the leading gay rights organizations in the country didn't even mention HIV/AIDS in their "State of the Movement" speech this year), today is no 1985. We have more information now, and we don't need a law that's so reactive.

3. Chronic Shortages of Blood

Ever see those emergency alerts come across your television screen or car radio, talking about how your community has a dire need for blood donations? Shortages are common. Across the country there are horror stories about hospitals nearly running out of blood, or in some situations, having to put surgeries on hold because there's simply not enough blood available to perform them. Though gay men aren't going to be the superheroes of the blood shortage problem, the fact of the matter is that U.S. hospitals could use more healthy donors. Many, many gay men fit that bill.

2. Stigmatizing? Yeah, a Little.

Fundies get their jollies on by talking about how homosexuality is a "sick lifestyle." Laws that ban gay blood donation feed into that meme, even if that's not their intention. And while the ban on gay blood donation doesn't get nearly as much attention as the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) or "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" -- two other U.S. laws that discriminate ruthlessly against queer people -- its effects are no less punishing. Even mainstream medical associations like the American Red Cross and the American Association for Blood Banks have said that there's no scientific or medical warrant to keeping the gay blood ban on the books. At this point, it's not keeping folks healthy. It's just keeping discrimination in check.

Meanwhile, how many blood drives happen at workplaces and schools, where gay men (especially those who aren't out of the closet) are put in sticky situations having to explain to coworkers or friends why they can't give blood.

1. Better Testing

Perhaps there's no better reason to get rid of the ban on gay blood than the simple fact that testing has dramatically improved. GMHC says in their report that today, the chances of receiving a unit of HIV-positive blood is one in 1.5 million. That's already a pretty dramatic statistic (although not perfect, clearly). Adding gay men to the donor rolls is not going to all of a sudden raise those chances from near impossible (which one in 1.5 million is pretty close to) to certainty.

As GMHC notes, "All blood is rigorously tested after donation for HIV and other infections and current testing technology can detect HIV in donated blood within days or weeks of infection. Consequently, donor eligibility screening that focuses on an individual’s recent high-risk behavior, and defers only those donors who are within the “window period” between that high-risk behavior and the point at which HIV is detectable by post-donation tests, is likely to be as effective as a longer ban in protecting the blood supply."

Meaning that lifetime bans on gay men aren't going to make the blood supply any safer. Instead, screening donors to find out whether they've done something risky within a certain timeframe is going to be a far more effective policy.

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