A Red Cross nurse led me to a seat behind a blue plastic screen. It was homecoming week, and I was at the DeVault Alumni Center to give blood. I sat there silent. Nervous.
The nurse began to make polite conversation with me about my major in school and what I did around campus. I talked with her, but my mind was focused on the debate going on in my head. Would I lie?
Before meeting with the nurse I had to look through a booklet. The information was pretty straightforward, explaining the donation process and what happens to the blood. There was also a deferral list, reasons someone would not be able to donate blood.
The questions covered places I have traveled, my medical history and my drug and sexual history. Reading over the information, I finally came to the one question I knew as a gay man I would have to face. The question that forbids me to give blood because the Food and Drug Administration categorizes the relationships I have as high-risk behavior.
To give blood, I must hide relationships and my sexual identity.
The nurse continued to talk as she prepared to take my pulse and blood pressure. But I was staring off, not really focusing on anything. My heart began to beat faster and I became anxious. I didn’t know what I was going to do.
As the nurse gripped my left wrist, checking my pulse, my right leg was bouncing like a piston.
“Are you nervous?” she asked.
I told her I typically had anxiety, but it was never a problem. She began to talk about her own anxiety as she strapped the blood pressure monitor around my bicep.
After telling me my blood pressure was high but it was nothing to worry about, the nurse got up and asked me to answer some questions on the computer.
The questions were exactly what I had read before in the booklet. Are you feeling healthy? Have you traveled outside of the U.S.? Have you ever received a blood transfusion or organ transplant?
The questions went on and I went through answering everything honestly. As I went through each one, I actually wasn’t thinking about what I was finally going to have to decide.
But then I saw two words and I immediately sat back in my chair.
“Male donors: have you had sex — even once — with another man since 1977?”
Sitting there just staring at that question I got angry. I had never felt discriminated against until that moment. Right then it became real.
What is it about the relationships I have that makes my blood not good enough? It has nothing to do with emotions. It’s all about politics.
The FDA first implemented the MSM Blood Deferral policy in 1983. It was estimated that HIV first came to the United States around 1977.
Because gay men were the highest carriers of HIV/AIDS, the ban was put in place to decrease the threat of transmitting the virus through blood transfusions.
The FDA has said the policy is not meant to discriminate; it is just based on statistics. Men who have had sex with other men have an HIV infection rate 60 times higher than the general population, according to the FDA.
The ban wasn’t just implemented on fear of spreading the virus. In the early ’80s HIV tainted the blood supply, leading to many deaths.
I know I could have easily lied and said no to the question. But I didn’t want to lie. I shouldn’t have to. So I told the truth.
After finishing the last few questions, I flipped a sign on the outside of the screen signaling I was done. A different nurse, who happened to be male, came back behind the screen to check my answers.
Skimming over information on the screen, he suddenly stopped and turned to me.
“OK, we have a problem,” he said.
He turned the computer to me and asked if I meant to answer yes to the question on the screen. It was the question that caused me so much stress.
“Yes, I wasn’t going to lie,” I told him.
“You know that means you won’t be allowed to give blood, right?” he asked.
I told him yes, and he sat back in his chair.
“I understand,” he said. “I’m gay too.”
Don’t be mad at the Red Cross though, he said.
The Red Cross actually lobbies against the ban, saying the current standards are scientifically unwarranted.
When the regulation was first put into place there were no accurate tests for HIV, the nurse explained, but now tests can find most strands of HIV within two weeks of contracting the virus. Also, he said, all blood that is donated is tested no matter what.
The MSM ban is just one of eight questions that, if answered yes to, will result in an indefinite deferral. The MSM ban is one of the strictest.
Having sex with a prostitute or being a prostitute will get you banned, but as long as you wait 12 months you’re fine. Using a needle to take non-prescription drugs, even once, will also result in being banned.
Since I was completely sure I was going to tell the truth, the nurse pulled out sheet of paper. At the top it read “Deferral Letter.” He filled in the date and checked a box. He said he wasn’t allowed to put the reason I was being denied, so he just wrote, “as discussed” on the explanation line.
I didn’t look at the paper until I got back to my car. I unfolded it. Written right next to the checked box were two sentences that summed up the past 20 minutes, and in some way the past 28 years.
“You are indefinitely unable to donate. Some of your health history that you provided prohibits any future donation of your blood for use by another
person.”
So until the FDA isn’t afraid of gay relationships, I am marked in the system and banned from giving blood for life.
