In the early hours of Sunday morning in Orlando, Omar Mateen opened fire in a gay nightclub, wounding 53 and killing 49 in the deadliest gun massacre in our country’s history.
It’s a story you’ve heard a lot about in the last few days. It is a terror attack. It is a hate crime. It is a deep, personal violation of a place where LGBTQ people can go to be themselves when they may not be able to do so at home or at work. This week, as the families and friends of the murdered are grieving for their loved ones, millions of people across the U.S. are feeling unsafe in their Pride month gatherings, their communities and even in their skins.
Orlando is struggling to recover from the attack, which has made them a center of international attention and mourning, and the survivors in the hospital are in need of support and solidarity to recover from their injuries. They need donated blood badly, and those in the Orlando area are rising to meet the challenge.
But in the wake of this assault on the LGBTQ community, there is one group of people who cannot give blood to the victims, despite the fact that they may be their friends, partners or family members: Men who have sex with men (MSM) are not allowed to give blood or tissue unless they have been celibate for at least a year, a revision of an earlier ban that permanently barred them from donation. Additionally, trans men and women are usually deferred from donation, despite the lack of any specific rule to that effect, because both are frequently considered to be MSM.
The fact that donation agencies are required to turn away willing donors at the door — when there is a great need for the very thing they are offering to provide — is an utter disgrace. It is a safety net cast far too widely because of fear and decades of prejudice.
It is mostly nonsensical. Although women make up about 25 percent of the HIV cases in the U.S. and African-Americans make up 44 percent of new HIV cases, we do not exclude women and black people from the donor pool, because that would be ridiculous. In fact, the donation ban is just one more way that HIV has been used against MSM over the years.
Although cases of HIV/AIDS had been reported prior to the ‘80s, it was then that it was "discovered." And although President Reagan did not bother to mention AIDS until 1985, after thousands of people had already died, many health organizations and laboratories had already considered it a threat and were addressing it.
As it emerged into the public sphere, however, efforts to hold it back were somewhat hindered by the fact that it was considered a “gay disease.” That made possible patrons of researchers less sympathetic. Even after ‘83, when it was shown that female partners of men infected with the virus could become infected as well, it was still a “gay disease” and continues to be so today — as you can see in South Carolina’s own sex-ed laws, which prohibit discussion of homosexuality outside of the discussion of sexually-transmitted diseases. (Read: HIV/AIDS.)
Perhaps before ‘83 and ’84, then, when the cause of AIDS had not been found and the death count was rising — when the population of infected people was almost entirely composed of MSM — it made sense to ban them from blood donation, particularly because reliable tests were still in development. Risk-group target measures taken to combat an unknown, untested disease were hardly radical.
However, it is now 2016. Although MSM continue to be disproportionately affected by HIV, we now know it is due to the way the disease is transmitted and not because they are gay.
Furthermore, we know that three months after infection, HIV-positive people almost always have a high enough antibody level to test positive on even cheap home tests and antibody tests. And our testing is getting better. So if there has to be a waiting period for MSM, why would it be a year and not three months, particularly since antibody tests are already regularly performed on donated blood?
None of this is to mention that LGBTQ culture has significantly changed because of HIV. When the virus hit in the '80s, the sexual revolution was arguably at its zenith. People with so-called “alternate” sexualities — particularly in areas like New York and Los Angeles, where the first outbreaks were noticed — were perhaps engaging in more frequent, more risky sex than before.
For those now feeling like man reaps what he sows: Consider the human cost of HIV when allowing your thoughts on gay people and sex color your view of death.
With the spread of AIDS came the closing of gay bathhouses, an increase in safe sex education, and the end of the “Golden Age of Promiscuity.” It is no longer broadly acceptable in the gay community to go without condoms, which protect against HIV 98 percent of the time when used correctly, and many MSM take PrEP, a pill that prevents the spread of HIV 92 percent of the time.
Unlike in the ‘80s, MSM have the tools and knowledge to keep themselves safe, although of course not everyone takes this knowledge to heart. We know what the virus is and how it is transmitted. We have ways to quickly and effectively test donated blood.
So why are we still excluding donors based on gender and sexual orientation rather than sexual habits? Using this as the criteria for donation would be no more invasive than the paperwork before a doctor’s visit, but it would allow MSM in monogamous, HIV-negative relationships and MSM who practice safe sex to donate, which is more important than ever this week, when MSM and trans people who want to give back to their suffering community will not be able to.
It is discriminatory to assume that all MSM are engaging in risky behaviors. And if we are going to assume that, it is largely pointless to make the “safe period” longer than three months.
The LGBTQ community in Orlando has been wounded severely this week. It’s time to ask ourselves why we aren’t letting the GBT of that acronym donate blood to help it recover.