By Charlotte Eccles
This is a topic that comes up time and again in the media, but most coverage on this issue is white noise with very little real information. This is the issue of gay and bisexual men donating blood. Initially, ‘men who have sex with men’ were given a blanket ban on donating blood or platelets to the NHS as they were at a greater risk of having AIDS and HIV. But, in 2011 this was amended to a ‘blanket deferral period’ wherein men could only give blood if they hadn’t engaged in sex with a man (with or without protection) in 12 months. In 2017, this was lowered to 12 weeks.
The NHS literature on the subject is very clear that “this isn’t meant to be discriminatory. It’s not based on anyone’s sexual history or sexuality. It reflects statistical risks for the sexual behaviour that increases the risk of virus transmission.” They also reiterate that “we [the NHS] are not responsible for making the decisions or setting the criteria about who can give blood. The Department of Health decides who can or can’t give blood based on independent advice from the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs (SaBTO).”
Where the conflict arises in this issue, is that the NHS openly states that men make the ideal donors because: “men’s additional body weight means they have suitable iron levels; they are less likely than women to carry certain immune cells meaning their plasma is more widely usable for transfusions; their platelet count is typically higher meaning they are more likely to be accepted as platelet donors.” So why can’t some men donate blood, just because of their sexuality? The answer is that gay men remain the group that is the most at risk of contracting AIDS and HIV, meaning that if they were to donate blood, the person receiving it is put at risk. But surely they test for this when they take the blood?
In April 2016, SaBTO launched an investigation into their blanket deferral, spurred on by campaigns such as Lush Cosmetic’s #FreedomToDonate. This included a photo posted on Instagram of a bathtub filled with a red liquid and the statement: “This is the amount of blood a healthy gay man could donate in a lifetime. It would be enough to save 53 lives.” The campaign received a swell of online support for the discriminatory ban to be lifted, and in 2017 SaBTO reduced their deferral to just 3 months.
SaBTO’s decision to maintain the 3-month deferral ban to this day is based purely on the results of their thorough scientific investigation into the subject, not discrimination. The issue that the media continues to fixate on, however, is that this assumes all gay men will contract HIV or AIDS, but this is simply not true. If you have recently had sex with someone who themselves has HIV, and they pass this on to you, standard HIV tests will not reveal that you have been infected immediately, hence the 3-month deferral.
It is worth noting that this deferral also applies to women who have had sex with ‘men who have sex with men’ and sex workers (which the NHS defines as someone who has accepted money or drugs for sex). While the literature is extremely PC regarding sex workers, who are often stigmatised over their extremely high-risk work, being referred to as everything from prostitutes to whores – but that’s a separate issue – the NHS seems to be squeamish around gay and bisexual people.
In my research, I have read the majority of the literature surrounding this issue, and all of the specific rules regarding ‘safe donation’ on the NHS website, and not once did I come across the words: gay, bisexual, or homosexual. If you fill out a medical form now, you will be asked for both your sex at birth, and your gender, which is evidence that the medical community is becoming more inclusive and aware of people who identify as different genders, i.e. trans people. The issue is, they are still hesitant to use the words ‘gay’ and ‘bisexual’ when dealing with the issue of blood donation. These are not taboo words.
Whilst I find it reasonable that the NHS is prohibited from accepting blood that is statistically more likely to carry infection, I can’t think why the NHS is so seemingly squeamish at using the correct terminology surrounding what they refer to as ‘men who have sex with men’. I believe that the issue arises from the stigma surrounding AIDS itself. AIDS and HIV are transmitted through sex, the implication being; if you have AIDS, you’ve had sex. And while it is not 100% effective, contraception should prevent this. So not only have you had sex, but you’ve had unprotected sex, thus, you have brought this upon yourself.
Sex is something that people are often extremely uncomfortable talking about, and to be seen to have an ‘active sex life’ is highly stigmatised. Women in the Victorian era who were found to be enjoying and seeking out sex were locked up in mental institutions as punishment. It’s alarming to think that, while we don’t actively punish people for enjoying sex anymore, we do judge them heavily for it.
It is likely that the NHS has made the conscious choice to avoid using the words ‘gay’ and ‘bisexual’ in their literature to detach their concerns over AIDS from this community, in an act of protection; they don’t want to imply that all gay men have AIDS and are sexually promiscuous. The fact of the matter is that gay men are more at risk because of a lack of inclusive sex education. They don’t learn in school that they also can contract STI’s through anal or oral sex, since most lessons in school will fixate on boys and girls having sex, and the risk of pregnancy.
This is an issue that the education system is currently tackling, with new initiatives such as the ‘No Outsiders’ program, which teaches Primary School children about same-sex parents. So it should only be a matter of time before sex education in Secondary Schools and High Schools begins to teach children about same sex relationships and sexual safety within them. Of course, this is all speculation, but I am hopeful that in a generation’s time, we will be at a place where gay and bisexual men are not at a higher risk of contracting AIDS and HIV, and it no longer becomes a necessary precaution to use the ‘3-month deferral’.
Sources
- NHS, ‘Who Can Give Blood?’, Mar 2019, https://www.blood.co.uk/who-can-give-blood/
- NHS, ‘Policies and Regulations’, Mar 2019, https://www.nhsbt.nhs.uk/who-we-are/transparency/policies-and-regulations/
- Benjamin Butterworth, Pink News, ‘The ‘blood bath’ by Lush shows just how many lives gay donors could save’, Feb 2018, https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/02/15/this-blood-bath-by-lush-shows-just-how-many-lives-gay-donors-could-save/
- NHS, ‘Men Who Have Sex with Men’, Mar 2019, https://www.blood.co.uk/who-can-give-blood/men-who-have-sex-with-men/
- Office for National Statistics, ‘Sexual Orientation, UK’, Jan 2019, https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/sexuality/datasets/sexualidentityuk
Comments