Hailing from the Greek island of Lesbos, Sappho, an ancient poet, has come to be associated with female homosexuality — a fact that the University Women’s Center didn’t overlook when it approached University student Lindsey Holman to lead its new group.
SAPPHO, a month-old group from the Women’s Center, is aimed at providing a “safe space” to discuss issues concerning gay women, Holman said. The issue at hand this week? The banning of queer men from giving blood.
SAPPHO is tabling this week at the Civil War Blood Drive, administered through the Lane Memorial Blood Bank, providing information about the ban and asking people to donate for those who can’t.
“(This ban) is a question of whether it’s science or discriminatory,” ASUO Gender & Sexual Diversity Advocate Sinjin Carey said. “When the ban was passed, there was a fear of transmission; (scientists) didn’t know how to treat it or even screen for it, but things are different now.”
In 1983, the Food and Drug Administration barred men from giving blood if they had sexual contact with another man at any time since 1977, the year they believe that the AIDS epidemic began in the U.S. Men who are sexually active with other men are, the FDA says, “at increased risk for HIV, Hepatitis B and certain other infections that can be transmitted by transfusion.”
The annual blood drive must abide by the practices and laws that have been set by the FDA, a sad conclusion for Carey, but something he is forced to come to terms with.
“When I talked to the Lane (Memorial Blood Bank) people, they said they needed people to give blood in any way, shape or form,” Carey said. “Their mission is not to discriminate, just to help people.”
This fall, Holman approached Carey wanting to stage a protest against the Civil War Blood Drive and the FDA policies, but after consideration, she found that giving was more important than protesting.
“I recognized that donating blood is necessary, and that even though this group is discriminated against, we shouldn’t fight it like that,” Holman said. “Instead we decided to give it more of a positive vibe.”
Carey has helped Holman with publicity for the group and the blood drive event, “basically getting people out there,” Carey said.
Carey believes part of the problem should be resolved by asking what he considers the right questions.
“One of the screening questions asked is: Have you had sex with another man?” Carey said. “And if so, you are banned for life.”
Carey said banning someone who has been monogamous for “20-some years” from giving blood is discriminatory.
“When you donate blood you should be getting questions about monogamy or your past relationships, rather than about general sexuality,” he said. “I know heterosexual couples that are not monogamous and are still allowed to give blood.”
The FDA has no current plans on changing this policy but says it will “continue to publicly revisit the current deferral policy as new information becomes available.” Its main responsibility is to protect blood recipients, and it would only change this policy if scientific data showed that a change in policy would not present a significant and preventable risk for blood recipients.
To prevent even the slightest risk of HIV transmission, the FDA will continue to ban all gay men from donating. The organization concludes that while highly sensitive tests fail to detect less than one in a million HIV-infected donors, there are more than 20 million transfusions of blood, red cell concentrates, or plasma every year in the U.S. and it “cannot yet detect all infected donors or prevent all transmission by transfusions.”
Also on the list of those banned from giving blood are intravenous drug abusers, people who have received transplants of animal tissue or organs, those who have recently traveled to or lived abroad in certain countries and people who have engaged in sex in return for money or drugs. SAPPHO is asking everyone to donate in the name of those who can’t.
The main message, Carey said, is to give blood.
“Basically we are asking our constituents, our peers, that we personally want to give blood but we are banned from doing so, so if they could give blood for us, that is our main goal,” Carey said.
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Gay donor ban inspires students to give
Daily Emerald
November 17, 2009
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