Yesterday, NYU's largest LGBT group, Queer Union, co-sponsored a blood drive with the New York City Blood Center. But it wasn't without conflict. The group took the drive as an opportunity to protest the regulation that bans "men who have sex with men" and "women who have sex with men who have sex with men" from donating blood. The group wrote on their Facebook page:
This ban is informed by a heterosexist discourse from the HIV/AIDS crisis that designated the queer body as the diseased, the contaminated, the unwanted body. The FDA implemented this ban in 1983,and it continues to this day-despite the fact that most folks view this ban as an anachronism in modern LGBTQ social contexts. Both the New York City Council and Washington, D.C. City Councils have passed resolutions to the FDA to change this policy in 2010, but we’ve yet so see any proactive response from the FDA.
Members of the Queer Union asked donators to sign their petition against the policy, and symbolically drew fake blood from ineligible donors. NYU junior Doug Miller told the Daily News, "I know so many people in [the LGBT] community that would donate if they could."
The New York Blood Donation center writes on their website that no matter who you are, your blood is "typed and tested for hepatitis, HIV (the AIDS virus), syphilis, and several other transmissible conditions" immediately after donation, completely eliminating any need to "screen" for HIV through discrimination against the gay community. They also already ask if you have HIV before donating, and will dismiss anyone who answers "yes." However, the FDA says in a statement, "The FDA's primary responsibility is to enhance blood safety and protect blood recipients. Therefore FDA would change this policy only if supported by scientific data showing that a change in policy would not present a significant and preventable risk to blood recipients."
