My guess? This policy might have been implemented way back in the 80s, when HIV was still seen as primarily a homosexual disease - and also an absolute sentence to a terrible death. No one’s bothered removing it since.
Gay. They don’t want mine. The woman at the place I had attempted to donate (not knowing about the gay exclusion) was rather an ass about it too.
Fool of a Took!
Yes, I have, and I would do it every 56 days, but most of the time I try my blood doesn’t have enough iron.
They always give me the flyer listing iron rich foods which I already have 10 of at home thankyouverymuch. But I don’t eat a lot of meat, and iron pills plus vitamin C don’t seem to boost my heme enough.
I’m on a non-allowed medication, plus last time I tried I was ousted for my time in Europe even though I’m a lifelong vegetarian and couldn’t have any cow prions in my blood. I also feel like if the blood of queer men who are HIV- and perfectly safe in their behavior isn’t good enough, then as a queer woman maybe mine isn’t good enough either.
And I used to work in the blood banking industry! And I know that the restrictions are the result of the FDA, not blood banks, but I can’t boycott the FDA.
That said, for pre-menopausal women who get deferred for hemoglobin, in addition to eating more iron-rich foods, try scheduling your donation for the few days right before your period.
That’s the reason I don’t give anymore. I was up to around two gallons, but one time I decided that the question “have you had sex with a man even once since 1977” was stupid and irrelevant. So I refused to answer it.
They said I had to answer it.
I said I’m not going to answer it.
So I didn’t get to donate blood that day, and they’ve never once called me back for a futher donation.
sigh You guys are guilt-tripping me back into it. I guess I should go give again. It’s been a while.
That’s an interesting thought. I wonder if donors who are against the ‘have you had sex with another man even once since 1977’ staged an organized boycott against donating, if they would change the rule?
It is a stupid rule. If a donee wants a blood donation, and they’re unwilling to take it from a gay person, they can go find their own damned donor.
Unfortunately, the recipient has no say in the matter. I’m sure most people who were dying and needed a transfusion would happily take it from any healthy person. I don’t punish the sick for someone else’s bullshit bureaucracy.
My body is very possessive and protective, it seems. The one time I donated blood, I was doing just fine (almost done, in fact) and comfortably reading a magazine when a nurse noticed my pallor. She asked how I was doing; I looked up and said, “Fine.” But, the movement of my head made everything go white and sparkly (ooh, vampires!), and it felt like my head was being doused with ice water. My blood pressure fell completely off the scale and it took nearly two hours to get a reading (total of three hours before they’d let me go home). In the meantime, I had 2-3 nurses in my face, alternately barking “Open your eyes, Ruffian!” and “I really don’t recommend you donate blood again.”
My body’s MO is to have crashing blood pressure following anything it considers trauma: giving birth, my two back surgeries, the C-section. Knowing this ahead of time, they keep me hydrated and I know to take it super slow when I first sit up after the procedure, and I avoid blacking out.
I have naturally low blood pressure, which is great most of the time.
Since I’m a nursing mother, I’m donating to the Human Milk Bank Association of America instead. I may not be able to help by giving blood, but at least my milk can help some preemies.
There have been a few battles in this area, mostly college campuses attempting to ban blood drives based on discrimination, but obviously the FDA is standing firm with their requirements. And I think the end result for most of those battles was the campuses would continue to allow drives.
I think almost all of my lesbian friends are regular donors, and it’s safe to say that every time I’m in the blood bank there will be at least 2 or 3 lesbians donating. I get the feeling the thought process is quite the opposite of tumbledown’s in that these women feel like maybe they can help by donating what their male friends/counterparts can’t.
“Permanently excluded,” is probably closest for me. I have trouble with anemia, and I’ve never actually been able to give blood, because my blood doesn’t sink.
I currently have it under control if I take my horrible iron supplements, but I’ve been rejected so often that I haven’t gone back.
I used to give every 56 days - there was a donation center two blocks from where I worked, and I loved the cookies. I got my 5 gallon pin just before I moved to Israel.
Unfortunately, in Israel I am excluded from giving because I had a heart attack almost 13 years ago. I don’t understand the reason for the exclusion; I donated all my blood in the U.S. in the years after the heart attack, and my health has been fine since then.
I really do miss giving.
I donate four times per year, usually taking advantage of a blood drive at church.
I cannot give blood in the US because I live in Europe. I cannot give blood in Europe for 6 weeks after going to the US because I might have gotten West Nile while I was there. In between those periods, I give blood every time they send me the little card to tell me it’s my turn. Which works out to about twice or three times a year.
I am below weight in the US but it has not yet been an issue here – possibly because they weighed me the first time in the winter with my shoes on. Here you get a physical the first time you go in, they never asked me my weight. The nurse told me this was because everybody lies about that.
If my iron is low they send me home and tell me to take a supplement and make an appointment the next week, by which time it is always back up again.
Now that I have a driver’s license I need to sign up for the plasma or platlets thingie, the nearest center where they can do it is not within bicycling distance (at least not for me.)
Permanently banned.
Maybe I am splitting hairs because it’s still a lame prohibition but technically, male homosexuals are not banned. You are banned if you are a man who has had sexual contact with another male one time since 1977. A straight man who experimented once in college in the 80’s cannot donate. A celibate gay man can.
I have hereditary hemochromatosis, so I actually have to donate regularly to maintain my own health. I’m currently giving every 56 days, or as close to that as I can manage, but at my peak, I was going as often as every week.
The Red Cross doesn’t want me because of the HH (my blood’s perfectly safe, but it causes some red tape issues), but fortunately, United Blood Services doesn’t mind, so I donate with them. It does make it a little harder to find conveniently located/scheduled drives, though, since UBS isn’t nearly as active as the Red Cross.
Oh, I should also add that I tried to donate regularly even before I was diagnosed with HH, but I’m more vigilant about it now.
Okay, so you know it’s the FDA not the blood banks making the rule. But rather than try to effect change by lobbying the FDA, you boycott the blood bank, denying a lifesaving product to a person likely in critical need. What does that accomplish exactly? Isn’t that kind of like kicking a puppy because you think PETA is run by assholes?
To the OP, I’m a platelet donor. I go once a month, although I have two donation scheduled for the month of March (you can donate platelets every two weeks). I have actually seen another Doper there as well, once. I’m a queer female. I go because I’m young and healthy and the needs outweighs any objections I may have to a particularly asinine rule.
In the meantime, on September 28, 2009 a trial started in Canada to determine if a gay man is liable for lying about his sexual history and it will also explore whether or not the policy is discriminatory under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Supreme Court of Ontario is expected to offer an opinion sometime this year. Meanwhile, a GLBT working group launched in 2008 is working with Blood Services to mitigate the crappy aspects of the current policy while promoting an agenda of change particularly with respect to research that could lead to other ways of screening donors that are more effective.
I’m a little freaked out by needles. Actually, I don’t know if I am any more since I haven’t seen a needle in so long, but I haven’t risked it.