The French Government will end its ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men, a decision that is being rejoiced by many around the world. Lifting the ban effectively increases blood donations to hospitals and clincs for life-saving transfusions and medicinal treatments. The French health minister, Marisol Touraine released the news along with a statement: “Giving blood is an act of generosity, of citizenship, which cannot be conditioned to sexual orientation.”
However stigma towards gay men, a remnant from the AIDS scare in the 1980s, remains. Stipulations in the new regulations state that if a man has not had relations with a man in the last 12 months, he may donate “whole blood;” if he has not had relations with a man or has only had one partner in the last four months, he may donate plasma. This policy change comes a little less than a year after changes were made to U.S. blood donations policies, and a little less than four years after Britain’s similar decision. The U.S. policy does not contain a four month deferral for plasma.
Although many criticize the French law’s undertones of persistent homophobia, it does bring offer hope that actually goes further than the American laws. After a year, a donors’ test results will be analyzed to see if there really is a higher risk of sexually transmitted diseases and other health risks prevalent in gay men. If the results show no sign of increase, the regulations for gay men will be the same as the regulations for heterosexual men (which stipulates that donors may have had only one partner in the last four months).
The policy change has been slow in coming, supposedly due to a lack of secure testing to detect certain sexually transmitted diseases, such as HIV. Following the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, it has been established that heterosexual couples are at just as high a risk for the disease as homosexual couples, but the medical community has been slow to catch up to reality.
In the US, there was a negative response to the French caveats from LGBT+ community online and in videos, such as this one, following the FDA’s release of information. The response from the French LGBT+ communtiy seems to be no different. Mr. Romero-Michel, and French politician and gay advocate stated that while he welcomed the change, he didn’t see why the risk factor had to be defined by sexual orientation when, “it isn’t being heterosexual that is a risk. It isn’t being gay that is a risk. It is behaviors that are risky.”
Countries including Spain and Italy screen based on behavior rather than orientation, a policy that European and American LGBT+ advocates are looking towards. Perhaps in a year, at the conclusion of its study, the French government will have enough proof to dissuade fears and end discrimination so that everyone can agree on fair blood donation policies in the rest of the twenty-first century.
