Not a world first at all
this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
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Yeah I thought the same, since my city did away with the 3-month rule two years ago (there’s still a partner-limit/monogamy requirement last I checked).
Apparently what makes it a “world first” is not that they allow gay donors but that they lifted all sexual activity-based rules (for plasma specifically) which used to reject sex workers, women who slept with bi men recently, and others. The title is just a bit misleading.
Thank you! That always bugged the hell out of me.
Someone actually thought that gays fuck around with everything and everyone but heterosexuals? Naaahh, they would nevah!
Gay men are statistically more likely to contract HIV. Of course, it would be horribly irresponsible and negligent not to test donated blood/plasma for HIV in the first place, so yeah, kinda dumb.
Of course, I get the statistics part but statistically, heterosexuals still get diseases. Less or more doesn't matter, it's a non zero chance so you have to check everything, no matter the sexuality of the person.
Statistics actually say the rule is dumb because statistically heterosexuals still have cooties too.
So if you gotta check anyway, why reject homosexual blood? Afraid that you might suddenly get the urge to play with a cucumber?
(And with "you" I mean whoever made those rules)
As I said, kinda dumb. There's likely some homophobia that went into the decision.
From a purely economic view, though, there might be some justification? If the blood is batch tested, e.g. 10 samples are mixed and tested, excluding a group more likely to have a disease would mean you'd throw out less blood (or have less testing to do if you then test individual samples). I don't know enough about blood donation testing to say if that's a valid argument or not, though.
Show me this statistical data.
https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/data-research/facts-stats/gay-bisexual-men.html
https://www.healthline.com/health/hiv-aids/hiv-risk-in-gay-men#transmission
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV_and_men_who_have_sex_with_men
https://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/2019-UNAIDS-data_en.pdf
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10159196/#pone.0281578.ref001
Consensus is that MSM are somewhere between 20-26 times more likely to contract HIV then other adult men. How much of that is biological and how much is cultural (e.g. in countries where homosexual sex is criminalized, access to healthcare and prophylactic medicines are likely less available) is definitely up for debate, and it of course does not mean that a straight man cannot contract HIV.
Fun fact, I’m O- and a gay man. I used to go down to those blood drives and flash my medical card. They were all very excited to take my blood, and then I said I was gay. The sad looks fuel me to this day.
......why was that ban in effect to begin with? I can understand during the 80s, with the misunderstandings of AIDS.
Basically by 1992, this shouldn't have been a thing.
That’s the answer. It’s institutional homophobia left over from the AIDS epidemic.
I went to England for a few weeks in the 80s am I still banned?
I think that was lifted a while ago. Check woth the donation place, but pretty sure you should be good.