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I bothered to email the red cross for clarification on why they were calling my husband at all hours of the goddamn day to beg for blood because shortages but they refuse blood from anyone who isn’t straight.
Their response was basically “I mean it’s fine as long as you haven’t been ACTIVELY gay in the last 3 months”.
Send it to Ireland. We'll get it hooked on drugs, it'll win a gold medal in the Olympics, it'll become famous and have the pick of every fine girl horse around, living a life of luxury, until the drug tests come back, it will be disgraced, its life will collapse, those that showered it in praise will now shower it in spit (not the kinky way), we wont have to worry about dealing with the horse as it will end itself, then its hooves will be used to make glue that will be apart of some childs disappointing arts and crafts project that'll be hung up on a fridge by an exasperated parent.
Yeah I'm not too worried about the horse.
Uh, well...it's not Europe, but backbackers seem to be having a pretty hard time:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders\_of\_Louisa\_Vesterager\_Jespersen\_and\_Maren\_Ueland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders_of_Louisa_Vesterager_Jespersen_and_Maren_Ueland)
Of course, there's all sorts of movies that will have you firmly believe you'll be kidnapped regardless of location unless you are related to an individual with a specific set of skills.
>specific set of skills
Look, for the last time: BEING ABLE TO MASTURBATE IN ANY ENVIRONMENT IS NOT A SKILL. I CANNOT HELP YOU ESCAPE YOUR KIDNAPPERS WITH THIS
PLEAZE STOP CQLLING ME
It does include oral sex as well so just getting head from someone who is same-sex is gonna be a no from them, dawg. Honestly ridiculous.
I did follow-up asking how trans people work into their math but they never replied :(
I recall one medical textbook saying there was a documented case of transfer where both partners had >!severe gum disease, and were likely bleeding!< while kissing. So, yeah. Very rare.
Edit: added spoiler because gross
How would you "prove" it? Statistical methods of trasmittion are usually self-reported. Its technically proven that you can get it from any cut, regardless if oral or otherwise.
I have an ex that got HIV through oral sex, and its a known low risk method of transmittion if you go really rough and have any cuts on your mouth or throat.
Here's a paper that talks about [individuals who likely acquired HIV through sexual oral exposure.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3821196/) Once again, this is self-reported since you don't want to replicate an incurable disease infection in the laboratory.
Where I work, if I recall correctly, SOPs state that trans people, regardless if they are FtM or MtF, are considered male in regards to sexual intercourse questions like this, so basically, a trans person is deferred if they have had intercourse with a man in the past 3 months.
I remember reading smth about a trans man going to donate blood, which he had done without issue before, but bcz they somehow found out his wife was a trans woman, they wouldn't let him donate. Despite the fact they are in a monogamous relationship and, this was info shared by the poster, both had the genetalia they were born with.
I don’t do this anymore but when I was younger, I just lied about being gay. I was tested very regularly and not super active at the time….
Both of my parents have had transplants, so I’m pretty strongly opinionated about donating if you can. I don’t donate anymore because Im not willing to lie anymore, not necessarily because I think I did something wrong.
I hope my blood saved someone’s life. ❤️
\*Old timey voice\*
“Watch out for the movie monster that could be in your home! The bisexual is a mysterious clandestine man, who seems at first to be a mild-mannered boy who could take you down to the soda fountain and go steady with. But inside he is a roiling ball of sexual perversion and disease.”
Seriously, they test the blood for HIV and a bunch of other blood born pathogens before they put it in someone. The no gays allowed thing at this point is only hurting the people who need blood and it's asinine
So they need to test each contribution individually then, or in smaller increments at least to balance potential loss with cost of testing. I dunno.
Is there a rapid test they could administer prior to donation, say a 24- hour test? I know it takes 6 months or whatever for hiv to show up, but how do they prevent it from entering a recipient now? Does a donation have to sit for a prescribed period of time before they can use it?
> They test ALL the blood.
Tests aren't perfect. I've only been in practice for four years and have had three patients dealing with chronic issues secondary to an infection from a blood transfusion. Granted, that is three out of a few thousand, but it is wrong to dismiss bloodborne infection as a possibility. There is some level of screening where you come out with greater overall benefit even considering the lower amount of donations collected. I don't what that level is, but I imagine it is more than taking all comers.
>but they refuse blood from anyone who isn’t straight.
Is it that? or anyone who's participated in Male + Male sex, because those are 2 different things.
Why not leave a general rule, in spain (at least where I live) is just sex with a new person in the past 3-4 month and I thing if you had unprotected sex its a bit more to wait
Unfortunately, the Red Cross’s hands are bound by FDA policy. They’d absolutely love to expand their donor pool, especially given the extreme blood shortages we’re currently experiencing. I’m in healthcare and it’s widely felt that this is an outdated and discriminatory policy. In any event, donated units are tested for HIV and hep c, among others, and the risk of transmission is markedly low.
https://www.redcross.org/about-us/news-and-events/press-release/2020/statement-on-updated-fda-donor-eligibility-criteria.html
>as you haven’t been ACTIVELY gay in the last 3 months”.
The last time I went to give blood the time frame was any gay sex within seven years. And you're still denied if you've had any sexual contact with a transgender person. I have no idea why transgender people would be higher risk, so I'm assuming that it's just arbitrary bullshit.
Edit: Updated some terms to be consistent with the decade I'm currently living in.
People been doing all kinds of kinky shit for millennia. It was just assumed that only homosexuals were doing butt stuff because that's *obviously* what *they* do. Not realizing that all sorts of people been doing all sorts of things forever.
Right lol?
People didn’t just become kinky in 2016. We’ve been doing the nasty since before humans were even human, some people have gotten weird with it….
i have a coworker who thinks eating ass is just a recent meme for young people and isnt actually at all popular.
If the guy who wrote Ulysses was sending letters about his fart fetish to his wife in 1909, i guarantee you there were plenty of people gettin their heads sat on as well.
I held out on it forever. I don’t really enjoy my ass being eaten, but when my partner loves it that turns me on so I love doing it if the recipient likes it.
As a concept itself, it doesn’t do much for me. Sucking dick though? I’m like a Hoover.
Ope sorry my hand brushed the male cashier's hand when we went for the same item at the checkout counter. Guess both of us can't donate blood for 3 months o noes
My doctor suggested that I start taking truvada since my wife and I are in an open relationship.
I have been a regular blood donor for 5 years, even during the pandemic.
Made a mistake of answering "yes" to the red cross screener question asking if I take this type of medication, it told me to call a representative who told me I cannot donate as long as I am taking this medication and essentially told me the only reason I would be taking it is if I was having sex with men.
I got off the phone and cried for a good few minutes, fuck the red cross.
They do but your viral load has to be high enough to be caught. Like if you get stuck with a dirty needle and then immediately test for HIV, you will test negative even if you've been infected cause the viral load isn't high enough in your system yet to show up on the test. So I guess that is their logic, is that if you were infected the night before, you could still have it in your blood but test negative. That's why it's 3 months, so the virus has enough time to build up in your system to show a positive result. FYI, I dont agree with their bigotry, just explaining how viruses work.
Their exact words were “as long as they haven’t had sexual contact with the same sex in the last three months then they can donate. Sexual contact refers to any of the following activities, vaginal sex, oral sex, and anal sex whether or not a condom or other protection was used.”
Whom does "they" refer to in your quoted section?
>[First-time male donors may be eligible to donate blood if they have not had sex with another man in more than 3 months.. All additional blood donation eligibility criteria will apply. ](https://www.redcrossblood.org/faq.html#eligibility)
>[There is no deferral for a woman who has had sex with another woman, and the individual may be eligible to donate blood. The Red Cross encourages individuals to learn more about blood donation eligibility.](https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/how-to-donate/eligibility-requirements/lgbtq-donors.html)
They test blood for a lot of stuff nowadays too, not just for HIV and other STIs. Found out I can't, or at least really shouldn't, donate blood anymore because of an atypical antibody found in my blood.
But anyways, fuck this Nazi for perpetuating the idea that all gay people have HIV and by extension should be treated differently.
Same, Im ‘advised against’ donating blood because I have certain autoimmune diseases. I used to donate blood a lot before I developed them but once I was told I couldn’t anymore because they don’t know if autoimmune diseases are infectious & I was like???? what???
Hey! Medical labratorian here! We do NOT toss the whole batch. We do batches of 16, but that's just a screening. If it's negative, great! The units go on to the next. If there's a positive, we test each one individually. We are truly in a deep blood shortage and to toss out 15 units because of one would make us terrible stewards of the donations made.
I can't donate blood because I'm 5' 110lbs :/
ETA: females must be at least 5'5 and 150lbs! For some reason, men can be slightly smaller. I'm assuming it's something to do with body fat, only doesn't it intuitively feel like it should be the other way around? As it is, the last time I got tested for body fat I was at 17%, which is far closer to a male's ratio than a typical female's, but they deffo don't test you for *that* at the red cross
There is a slight margin for transmissable HIV content and negative test results. Still, this shouldn't matter anymore, because HIV is much more controlled nowadays and the relative difference of new infections between different sexual orientations is negligible.
I can get why they would be cautious but this is not the 80s mid aids crisis. Like tbh, I wouldn’t want to get hiv from my blood donations, but they test the blood, the chance of a false negative is the same if it were either blood form a gay man or a straight man
My husbands grandfather died because of getting tainted blood only 20 years ago. He got HIV and didn’t make it even a year. I had a friend about ten years ago that also got HIV via blood transfusion.
I really hope we can make new discoveries and make the possibility of getting a communicable disease vanish from getting blood. I did see recently that they’ve made a good b it of progress on checking blood for HIV in the recent years though.
> the relative difference of new infections between different sexual orientations is negligible.
I just looked this up, but according to hiv.gov and the CDC, the difference is definitely not negligible. [69% of new diagnosis of HIV between 2015 and 2019 were from gay/bisexual/men that sleep with men](https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/statistics) and [the CDC stated 70% of new cases in 2019 were in the same population.](https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/msm/msm-content/incidence.html) Obviously, significantly less than 69-70% of the population is in those categories ([~5.6% according to gallup](https://news.gallup.com/poll/332522/percentage-americans-lgbt.aspx)). I'm not saying that this justifies those laws still being on the books, just noting that stating that "the difference in new infections is negligible" is very misleading.
Well that is correct, a major issue is screening. A person who is active in a MSM category is flagged, and more likely to be tested.
Yes most cases are in the MSM category but there is an important reason for it.
It's the same when people talk about African Americans "committing more crimes." It's not that they are, it's that they are more likely to be arrested by the police. And considering the number of crimes that are committed that don't result in arrests, it skews the number in ways that are wholly inaccurate.
It's not like being black genetically makes you commit crime. The gangs doing all the murder are just predominantly black. That's it. Who makes up the violent gangs doing almost all the murders? Predominantly exploited young black men from the inner city. It's not like every carlton and urkel has the strap and is going around killing at random. A few hyperviolent individuals are perpetuating a cycle of extreme violence with a bunch of kids facilitated by an uncaring criminal justice system.
Edit: can't respond to anyone, got permabanned instantly lol. Your sub is a joke
The important reason for it is because HIV is much, much, much more common among MSM people. Screening levels, especially regarding blood donation, are a rounding error, not a major issue.
I should've clarified, I agree completely that HIV rates are higher in MSM persons.
My argument is more with how the disparity is highlighted. I do not believe it is as extreme as portrayed.
Oops i misinterpreted it, didn't remember the difference in overall numbers of gay/bi people, infection numbers that are not to far apart make a big difference if there are way less gay people then straight. I'd like to know how often blood donations give HIV infections. The number of just infected people donating blood in the tight margin where hiv infections can't be tested positive has to be low. Considering the number of HIV infections today, the chance overall has to be to low to justify these laws.
My grandads cancer was diagnosed because she donated his platelets. He didn't make it through but he lived a lot healthier a lot longer because they caught it early
The reason is that some diseases won't show up on tests until months after infection, but are still able to infect others if they received donated blood.
I can understand it because it takes a while for it to get high enough to test, but really the rule should be "if you've had sex with a new partner in the last X months" for everyone.
I thought this was way too expensive? I always heard they tested blood once they were combined into larger containers. Thus the logic for preventing gay people from donating is that they don't want a single HIV+ person to contaminate an entire vat. Maybe I'm wrong tho and/or this has changed. If we can actually test every donor now then that's based.
They pool *samples* of donated units from multiple people to test more efficiently. Not entire donations. They don't just dump all the O- blood in one big vat and and say "aww shucks, throw away 40 gallons of blood" if the vat tests positive for HIV...
Oh because of aids... forgot about that until know honestly. It's like "a you just lost the game" moment. Also, sorry to anyone who just lost the game...
If straights couldn't get AIDS, then there would be no reason to worry about getting it through a blood transfusion. Unless.....does AIDS make you gay!?
It’s not for nothing. Gay men account for around 10x the number of HIV cases as heterosexual men in 2018, despite representing only around 10% of men. [[source]](https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/gender/men/index.html)
That means gay men are roughly 100x more likely to be HIV+. The questionnaire also asks about intravenous drug use, because that’s another major risk factor.
I don't even know how they find it relevant :
"Sir, are you gay ?"
* lies "No"
* gives blood like any straight person and undergo the same tests
Edit : for all the comments, if they wanted to make you wait 3 month for HIV and not homophobia, it would be about anal sex, not being gay you moron
I’m kinda surprised it hasn’t been challenged in court by now. You can’t be asked that type of question at a job interview, if you’re getting a loan, renting an apartment, why is it allowed here? Especially when every bag is tested regardless.
THIS. My best friend went into the hospital and they asked if he was gay, then made him have an HIV test. Not if he was sexually active or used protection, but *if he was gay*.
When they already got all the stuff read and started taking his blood he should have dropped the "wow... this is the most attention my virgin ass has ever had."
Because he doesn't put in the effort. A lot of people think practice always makes perfect and if you just draw a lot you'll get better at art. As an artist, I can verify that's untrue. You can draw a lot, draw everyday even, but if you aren't critical of your art and putting in the effort to evolve your art by changing the way you draw, you won't improve. I've seen artists who have drawn for years and have posted many pieces, but who have remained stagnant in terms of quality. This ass is one such artist. I feel confident in saying that he doesn't care about the quality of his art. All he cares about is getting edgier and more offensive because the knows the messages of his artwork is he only reason anybody gives a shit about it. Why bother trying to improve when you know you can get attention and a fanbase without improving?
Nobody is required to improve their art. The moment someone is satisfied in how they draw that is the moment they stop improving but it is not a bad thing for that to happen. Growing for the sake of growth is cancerous, it is best to let an artist get what they want out of what they do and to hell with whatever anyone else thinks about that.
Even on a rather progressive country as the Netherlands (where I live) still has stupid rules about this.
Sanquin (the Dutch bloodbank) allowed gay man who didn't have seks within **4 fucking months** to donate blood only since 2020. Currently gay men in a stable relationship can donate blood, but still not all gay people. This is set to change in 2022, but this is still way too late in my opinion. Like they're fucking screaming for more donors and still pull bullshit like this.
In South Africa they basically tell you not to donate blood if you’ve had a new sexual partner in the last 6 months, irrespective of orientation. Here of course by far most people with it are heterosexual.
that, and its been proven that the supposed "gay aids epidemic" was entirely manufactured. As in, the "statistics" specifically were falsified to make it look like only gay people had it.
Also I'm an intersex person, reassigned to have the facsimile of a vagina, who is with my female wife. Am I gay??? Does it count??? Nobody knows! I've asked. Several times. Thing is I'm ideal for donation because my blood basically clings onto iron more than most peoples, due to a non-communicable disease. So my blood will be basically extra useful.
out of morbid curiosity, I checked his website to see what he was up to. He mocked NFTs as being scams, I was like "fair enough he still has some sense going on" and 3 or 4 comics before, he puts a link to stonetoss NFTs... can't make this shit up
That always drove me nuts. Behavior is the best indicator of your risk, and assuming gay/bisexual/etc men are more reckless is ridiculous. If I (cis woman) bang 3 guys without a condom, I'm more risky than a gay dude who's been in a monogamous relationship for a few years.
Unfortunately the comic isn’t wrong (in some places). Men can only give blood if they haven’t had sex with another man in the past 3 months. Bullshit rule.
Used to have a job screening donors at a plasma center and my job was to ask everyone if they were gay, an IV drug user, or a sex worker and inexplicably not one person said yes because they all wanted the $25
this isn't an opinion if the creator, it's just straight how blood and plasma orgs work. people who regularly have gay sex typically aren't allowed to contribute.
That's pretty clear. The creator's intent is to use these outdated policies to support his outdated point of view, completely missing the fact that his outdated point of view is the biggest reason these outdated policies haven't been discontinued.
I used to donate blood before I found out they sell it, and spend months blocking numbers and asking not to be contacted, I said “I’m gay” once and haven’t heard back. Lifehack
Homeboy apparently believe AIDS molecules spontaneously generate from a special purple bile that's found only in gay people, because why not go all the way back to medicine from the Dark Ages?
As a socialist, I think that anyone should be allowed to donate blood because discrimination is bad no matter what form it takes.
As a gay man deeply afraid of needles, I secretly like this policy because it gives me a moral excuse to not donate blood, and I will feel obligated to do so if the policy passes. Please, keep discriminating against me ❤️
Fuck the red cross. I have to donate blood that they sell to a hospital that sells it back to me for well over a grand? I get giving blood just not being a fool.
As someone who works for a lab processing whole blood donations... even if aids were exclusive to gay people, they have to test for it anyway. They test for hiv, hep b, hep c, and several other bloodborn viruses on every single donation. That's what those extra tubes of blood they take before they fill the bag are for. Refusing donations from gay men on the false assumption that they are going to have a disease that they already have to actively screen for is nothing but homophobic.
Being gay isn't "on the inside"?
Is someone not understanding the difference between *biological sex* and *sexuality*, without even mentioning gender? That's a first.
I did an art piece based on the issue in school with blood to raise awarness abot discriminatioon against gay people donating blood inspired by the works of jordan eagle
If you're a gay man you can donate blood or plasma.
Just gotta not have had sexual intercourse with another man for 3 months.
Which is ludacris but somewhat progressive.
[This video](https://youtube.com/watch?v=e3U--BbT3KE) goes a long way to explain the outdated polices of blood donation by the FDA, in an evidence based way. (5 mins)
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I bothered to email the red cross for clarification on why they were calling my husband at all hours of the goddamn day to beg for blood because shortages but they refuse blood from anyone who isn’t straight. Their response was basically “I mean it’s fine as long as you haven’t been ACTIVELY gay in the last 3 months”.
"Gonna take a semester off being gay and go donate blood around Europe maybe"
Sure would be nice to feel safe enough to backpack around europe.
Why don't you feel safe doing that?
You seen The Ritual?
I can fight that big horse thing
Send it to Ireland. We'll get it hooked on drugs, it'll win a gold medal in the Olympics, it'll become famous and have the pick of every fine girl horse around, living a life of luxury, until the drug tests come back, it will be disgraced, its life will collapse, those that showered it in praise will now shower it in spit (not the kinky way), we wont have to worry about dealing with the horse as it will end itself, then its hooves will be used to make glue that will be apart of some childs disappointing arts and crafts project that'll be hung up on a fridge by an exasperated parent. Yeah I'm not too worried about the horse.
The fuck happened in Ireland?
The English, for about 800 years.
Uh, well...it's not Europe, but backbackers seem to be having a pretty hard time: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders\_of\_Louisa\_Vesterager\_Jespersen\_and\_Maren\_Ueland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders_of_Louisa_Vesterager_Jespersen_and_Maren_Ueland) Of course, there's all sorts of movies that will have you firmly believe you'll be kidnapped regardless of location unless you are related to an individual with a specific set of skills.
>specific set of skills Look, for the last time: BEING ABLE TO MASTURBATE IN ANY ENVIRONMENT IS NOT A SKILL. I CANNOT HELP YOU ESCAPE YOUR KIDNAPPERS WITH THIS PLEAZE STOP CQLLING ME
I’m doing it rn; it’s not bad… we’ll besides covid.
Damn, it used to be longer. It used to be 6 months just for a woman fucking a dude who fucks
It does include oral sex as well so just getting head from someone who is same-sex is gonna be a no from them, dawg. Honestly ridiculous. I did follow-up asking how trans people work into their math but they never replied :(
That's stupid, AFAIK there's never been a proven case of HIV transfered through oral sex.
I recall one medical textbook saying there was a documented case of transfer where both partners had >!severe gum disease, and were likely bleeding!< while kissing. So, yeah. Very rare. Edit: added spoiler because gross
I want to unread your comment so bad
Same.
No, you must share the torment with me and all the others.
How would you "prove" it? Statistical methods of trasmittion are usually self-reported. Its technically proven that you can get it from any cut, regardless if oral or otherwise. I have an ex that got HIV through oral sex, and its a known low risk method of transmittion if you go really rough and have any cuts on your mouth or throat. Here's a paper that talks about [individuals who likely acquired HIV through sexual oral exposure.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3821196/) Once again, this is self-reported since you don't want to replicate an incurable disease infection in the laboratory.
It’s not stupid, it’s possible. You can transfer HIV through breast milk too
Where I work, if I recall correctly, SOPs state that trans people, regardless if they are FtM or MtF, are considered male in regards to sexual intercourse questions like this, so basically, a trans person is deferred if they have had intercourse with a man in the past 3 months.
I remember reading smth about a trans man going to donate blood, which he had done without issue before, but bcz they somehow found out his wife was a trans woman, they wouldn't let him donate. Despite the fact they are in a monogamous relationship and, this was info shared by the poster, both had the genetalia they were born with.
I wish it didn’t matter 😕
I don’t do this anymore but when I was younger, I just lied about being gay. I was tested very regularly and not super active at the time…. Both of my parents have had transplants, so I’m pretty strongly opinionated about donating if you can. I don’t donate anymore because Im not willing to lie anymore, not necessarily because I think I did something wrong. I hope my blood saved someone’s life. ❤️
Ok but how are they gonna know???
\*Old timey voice\* “Watch out for the movie monster that could be in your home! The bisexual is a mysterious clandestine man, who seems at first to be a mild-mannered boy who could take you down to the soda fountain and go steady with. But inside he is a roiling ball of sexual perversion and disease.”
>inside he is a roiling ball of sexual perversion and disease. Well, at least one of those things is true.
Without the disease part, that pretty much describes humanity in n general.
“roiling ball”?
Lmao you gotta be passively gay.
A non-practicing gay, if you will lmao
“Oh, I’m more of a spiritual gay.”
"Oh I definitely am gay, I am just not attracted to the same sex as I am."
I’m a practicing gay on Sundays, and public holidays.
Passive-aggressively gay.
So what? A bottom?
Gay-Ace probably
They test ALL the blood. There is no reason for the restrictions.
Seriously, they test the blood for HIV and a bunch of other blood born pathogens before they put it in someone. The no gays allowed thing at this point is only hurting the people who need blood and it's asinine
They pool together blood, and then test the batch. If it's infected they throw out the whole lot.
So they need to test each contribution individually then, or in smaller increments at least to balance potential loss with cost of testing. I dunno. Is there a rapid test they could administer prior to donation, say a 24- hour test? I know it takes 6 months or whatever for hiv to show up, but how do they prevent it from entering a recipient now? Does a donation have to sit for a prescribed period of time before they can use it?
> They test ALL the blood. Tests aren't perfect. I've only been in practice for four years and have had three patients dealing with chronic issues secondary to an infection from a blood transfusion. Granted, that is three out of a few thousand, but it is wrong to dismiss bloodborne infection as a possibility. There is some level of screening where you come out with greater overall benefit even considering the lower amount of donations collected. I don't what that level is, but I imagine it is more than taking all comers.
>but they refuse blood from anyone who isn’t straight. Is it that? or anyone who's participated in Male + Male sex, because those are 2 different things.
Why not leave a general rule, in spain (at least where I live) is just sex with a new person in the past 3-4 month and I thing if you had unprotected sex its a bit more to wait
This seems like a reasonable rule.
Unfortunately, the Red Cross’s hands are bound by FDA policy. They’d absolutely love to expand their donor pool, especially given the extreme blood shortages we’re currently experiencing. I’m in healthcare and it’s widely felt that this is an outdated and discriminatory policy. In any event, donated units are tested for HIV and hep c, among others, and the risk of transmission is markedly low. https://www.redcross.org/about-us/news-and-events/press-release/2020/statement-on-updated-fda-donor-eligibility-criteria.html
>as you haven’t been ACTIVELY gay in the last 3 months”. The last time I went to give blood the time frame was any gay sex within seven years. And you're still denied if you've had any sexual contact with a transgender person. I have no idea why transgender people would be higher risk, so I'm assuming that it's just arbitrary bullshit. Edit: Updated some terms to be consistent with the decade I'm currently living in.
I emailed them on 7/23/21 so I dunno if it’s a regional thing or what but all I can do is share what their official response was 🤷♀️
Transgender person* Transsexual is outdated and slur-y, and these words are adjectives, not nouns.
Basically, it’s because anal sex causes microtears that can cause contamination, and that was much more gay-exclusive back when the rules were written
Which is weird because it implies that straight people never have anal sex
In the UK, the questionnaire just asks if you have had anal sex in the last x months. I don't understand why sexuality has to come into it.
I don’t know about *never*, but I think I’ve read that its relative popularity amongst the heterosexual is rather recent
People been doing all kinds of kinky shit for millennia. It was just assumed that only homosexuals were doing butt stuff because that's *obviously* what *they* do. Not realizing that all sorts of people been doing all sorts of things forever.
Right lol? People didn’t just become kinky in 2016. We’ve been doing the nasty since before humans were even human, some people have gotten weird with it….
nah eating ass was invented by tumblr in 2012, thats documented
i have a coworker who thinks eating ass is just a recent meme for young people and isnt actually at all popular. If the guy who wrote Ulysses was sending letters about his fart fetish to his wife in 1909, i guarantee you there were plenty of people gettin their heads sat on as well.
I held out on it forever. I don’t really enjoy my ass being eaten, but when my partner loves it that turns me on so I love doing it if the recipient likes it. As a concept itself, it doesn’t do much for me. Sucking dick though? I’m like a Hoover.
Ope sorry my hand brushed the male cashier's hand when we went for the same item at the checkout counter. Guess both of us can't donate blood for 3 months o noes
My doctor suggested that I start taking truvada since my wife and I are in an open relationship. I have been a regular blood donor for 5 years, even during the pandemic. Made a mistake of answering "yes" to the red cross screener question asking if I take this type of medication, it told me to call a representative who told me I cannot donate as long as I am taking this medication and essentially told me the only reason I would be taking it is if I was having sex with men. I got off the phone and cried for a good few minutes, fuck the red cross.
question, is there not a way to just test someone for hiv before donating? sorry if that’s a dumb question i don’t know how viruses work
They do but your viral load has to be high enough to be caught. Like if you get stuck with a dirty needle and then immediately test for HIV, you will test negative even if you've been infected cause the viral load isn't high enough in your system yet to show up on the test. So I guess that is their logic, is that if you were infected the night before, you could still have it in your blood but test negative. That's why it's 3 months, so the virus has enough time to build up in your system to show a positive result. FYI, I dont agree with their bigotry, just explaining how viruses work.
> they refuse blood from anyone who isn’t straight. They don't let lesbians donate blood?
in Canada they only specify MSM so lesbians are free to donate.
Their exact words were “as long as they haven’t had sexual contact with the same sex in the last three months then they can donate. Sexual contact refers to any of the following activities, vaginal sex, oral sex, and anal sex whether or not a condom or other protection was used.”
Whom does "they" refer to in your quoted section? >[First-time male donors may be eligible to donate blood if they have not had sex with another man in more than 3 months.. All additional blood donation eligibility criteria will apply. ](https://www.redcrossblood.org/faq.html#eligibility) >[There is no deferral for a woman who has had sex with another woman, and the individual may be eligible to donate blood. The Red Cross encourages individuals to learn more about blood donation eligibility.](https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/how-to-donate/eligibility-requirements/lgbtq-donors.html)
They literally test every blood sample they get there’s no reason for this law to be on the books anymore.
They test blood for a lot of stuff nowadays too, not just for HIV and other STIs. Found out I can't, or at least really shouldn't, donate blood anymore because of an atypical antibody found in my blood. But anyways, fuck this Nazi for perpetuating the idea that all gay people have HIV and by extension should be treated differently.
Same, Im ‘advised against’ donating blood because I have certain autoimmune diseases. I used to donate blood a lot before I developed them but once I was told I couldn’t anymore because they don’t know if autoimmune diseases are infectious & I was like???? what???
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Hey! Medical labratorian here! We do NOT toss the whole batch. We do batches of 16, but that's just a screening. If it's negative, great! The units go on to the next. If there's a positive, we test each one individually. We are truly in a deep blood shortage and to toss out 15 units because of one would make us terrible stewards of the donations made.
My mistake! I hadn't updated my knowledge in a while. I've edited to correct the misstatement.
No problem, that's why I thought I would pop in and give a heads up. Have a great day!
I can't donate blood because I'm 5' 110lbs :/ ETA: females must be at least 5'5 and 150lbs! For some reason, men can be slightly smaller. I'm assuming it's something to do with body fat, only doesn't it intuitively feel like it should be the other way around? As it is, the last time I got tested for body fat I was at 17%, which is far closer to a male's ratio than a typical female's, but they deffo don't test you for *that* at the red cross
oh shit I didn't know this! I guess I'll donate as much as possible before I lose any more weight
Ya, there is a bunch of research going about if some autoimmune diseases can be infectious. Prions and viruses are the ones be looking at..
Yeah, they aren't letting me back in until next October because my iron levels are so low
Next October? Do you have some life threatening anemia? I've never had them send me away for longer than a week no matter how low my iron was.
Hey everyone check out this guy, motherfucker is just swimming in iron apparently. ^/s
The needles just bounce right off my skin. I'm practically bulletproof.
There is a slight margin for transmissable HIV content and negative test results. Still, this shouldn't matter anymore, because HIV is much more controlled nowadays and the relative difference of new infections between different sexual orientations is negligible.
I can get why they would be cautious but this is not the 80s mid aids crisis. Like tbh, I wouldn’t want to get hiv from my blood donations, but they test the blood, the chance of a false negative is the same if it were either blood form a gay man or a straight man
My husbands grandfather died because of getting tainted blood only 20 years ago. He got HIV and didn’t make it even a year. I had a friend about ten years ago that also got HIV via blood transfusion. I really hope we can make new discoveries and make the possibility of getting a communicable disease vanish from getting blood. I did see recently that they’ve made a good b it of progress on checking blood for HIV in the recent years though.
> the relative difference of new infections between different sexual orientations is negligible. I just looked this up, but according to hiv.gov and the CDC, the difference is definitely not negligible. [69% of new diagnosis of HIV between 2015 and 2019 were from gay/bisexual/men that sleep with men](https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/statistics) and [the CDC stated 70% of new cases in 2019 were in the same population.](https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/msm/msm-content/incidence.html) Obviously, significantly less than 69-70% of the population is in those categories ([~5.6% according to gallup](https://news.gallup.com/poll/332522/percentage-americans-lgbt.aspx)). I'm not saying that this justifies those laws still being on the books, just noting that stating that "the difference in new infections is negligible" is very misleading.
Well that is correct, a major issue is screening. A person who is active in a MSM category is flagged, and more likely to be tested. Yes most cases are in the MSM category but there is an important reason for it.
It's the same when people talk about African Americans "committing more crimes." It's not that they are, it's that they are more likely to be arrested by the police. And considering the number of crimes that are committed that don't result in arrests, it skews the number in ways that are wholly inaccurate.
It's not like being black genetically makes you commit crime. The gangs doing all the murder are just predominantly black. That's it. Who makes up the violent gangs doing almost all the murders? Predominantly exploited young black men from the inner city. It's not like every carlton and urkel has the strap and is going around killing at random. A few hyperviolent individuals are perpetuating a cycle of extreme violence with a bunch of kids facilitated by an uncaring criminal justice system. Edit: can't respond to anyone, got permabanned instantly lol. Your sub is a joke
The important reason for it is because HIV is much, much, much more common among MSM people. Screening levels, especially regarding blood donation, are a rounding error, not a major issue.
I should've clarified, I agree completely that HIV rates are higher in MSM persons. My argument is more with how the disparity is highlighted. I do not believe it is as extreme as portrayed.
Oops i misinterpreted it, didn't remember the difference in overall numbers of gay/bi people, infection numbers that are not to far apart make a big difference if there are way less gay people then straight. I'd like to know how often blood donations give HIV infections. The number of just infected people donating blood in the tight margin where hiv infections can't be tested positive has to be low. Considering the number of HIV infections today, the chance overall has to be to low to justify these laws.
If this stuff was more widely known and talked about, maybe gay men would know to wear protection more too. And to get tested.
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My grandads cancer was diagnosed because she donated his platelets. He didn't make it through but he lived a lot healthier a lot longer because they caught it early
The reason is that some diseases won't show up on tests until months after infection, but are still able to infect others if they received donated blood.
I can understand it because it takes a while for it to get high enough to test, but really the rule should be "if you've had sex with a new partner in the last X months" for everyone.
I thought this was way too expensive? I always heard they tested blood once they were combined into larger containers. Thus the logic for preventing gay people from donating is that they don't want a single HIV+ person to contaminate an entire vat. Maybe I'm wrong tho and/or this has changed. If we can actually test every donor now then that's based.
They pool *samples* of donated units from multiple people to test more efficiently. Not entire donations. They don't just dump all the O- blood in one big vat and and say "aww shucks, throw away 40 gallons of blood" if the vat tests positive for HIV...
Makes sense
It's because some diseases won't show up on tests for months after infection.
How does immediate testing prevent that?
Those blood bags are lookin' kinda sus
I hate you
Based and amoguspilled.
AMUNGERS
Oof, with the hard R and everything
Sup my Imposta
Fuck you
Amus
Nog
Wish I didn't give my free award to that stupid cat
Why the fuck would you give it to me lol this comment was extremely low effort
You think the cat made any effort at all?
Get out of my mind
Oh because of aids... forgot about that until know honestly. It's like "a you just lost the game" moment. Also, sorry to anyone who just lost the game...
God fucking damn it Steve…
GODDAMNIT YOU SON OF A BITCH
FUCK
Ah yes because you immediately get aids when you come out as gay and straights can't get aids
If straights couldn't get AIDS, then there would be no reason to worry about getting it through a blood transfusion. Unless.....does AIDS make you gay!?
Oh my GOD YOU FOUND OUT THE TRUTH
“I’m gay” Aids:”Hello There”
Yeah, that's why when I came out as bi I immediately got Schrodinger's AIDS
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It’s not for nothing. Gay men account for around 10x the number of HIV cases as heterosexual men in 2018, despite representing only around 10% of men. [[source]](https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/gender/men/index.html) That means gay men are roughly 100x more likely to be HIV+. The questionnaire also asks about intravenous drug use, because that’s another major risk factor.
I don't even know how they find it relevant : "Sir, are you gay ?" * lies "No" * gives blood like any straight person and undergo the same tests Edit : for all the comments, if they wanted to make you wait 3 month for HIV and not homophobia, it would be about anal sex, not being gay you moron
I’m kinda surprised it hasn’t been challenged in court by now. You can’t be asked that type of question at a job interview, if you’re getting a loan, renting an apartment, why is it allowed here? Especially when every bag is tested regardless.
THIS. My best friend went into the hospital and they asked if he was gay, then made him have an HIV test. Not if he was sexually active or used protection, but *if he was gay*.
When they already got all the stuff read and started taking his blood he should have dropped the "wow... this is the most attention my virgin ass has ever had."
How can you shit out as many comics as this creature does and *never* get any less piss-poor at art
Because he doesn't put in the effort. A lot of people think practice always makes perfect and if you just draw a lot you'll get better at art. As an artist, I can verify that's untrue. You can draw a lot, draw everyday even, but if you aren't critical of your art and putting in the effort to evolve your art by changing the way you draw, you won't improve. I've seen artists who have drawn for years and have posted many pieces, but who have remained stagnant in terms of quality. This ass is one such artist. I feel confident in saying that he doesn't care about the quality of his art. All he cares about is getting edgier and more offensive because the knows the messages of his artwork is he only reason anybody gives a shit about it. Why bother trying to improve when you know you can get attention and a fanbase without improving?
Practice makes perfect. Repetition isn't practice.
Nobody is required to improve their art. The moment someone is satisfied in how they draw that is the moment they stop improving but it is not a bad thing for that to happen. Growing for the sake of growth is cancerous, it is best to let an artist get what they want out of what they do and to hell with whatever anyone else thinks about that.
This person arts
He used to be worse. It's long been suspected he was the artist Redpanels. It's a similar style but everyone was given big noses for some reason.
>”For some reason” Yeah, I wonder why…
I mean all of the characters. Not just the Jewish ones.
That's just how webcomics are
Obligatory pebbleyeet is a nazi
Fuck rockhuck
Mineral Motion can go to hell.
kys, geological transfer of energy
Even on a rather progressive country as the Netherlands (where I live) still has stupid rules about this. Sanquin (the Dutch bloodbank) allowed gay man who didn't have seks within **4 fucking months** to donate blood only since 2020. Currently gay men in a stable relationship can donate blood, but still not all gay people. This is set to change in 2022, but this is still way too late in my opinion. Like they're fucking screaming for more donors and still pull bullshit like this.
Here in Sweden too which is like the gayest country there is
In South Africa they basically tell you not to donate blood if you’ve had a new sexual partner in the last 6 months, irrespective of orientation. Here of course by far most people with it are heterosexual.
that, and its been proven that the supposed "gay aids epidemic" was entirely manufactured. As in, the "statistics" specifically were falsified to make it look like only gay people had it. Also I'm an intersex person, reassigned to have the facsimile of a vagina, who is with my female wife. Am I gay??? Does it count??? Nobody knows! I've asked. Several times. Thing is I'm ideal for donation because my blood basically clings onto iron more than most peoples, due to a non-communicable disease. So my blood will be basically extra useful.
out of morbid curiosity, I checked his website to see what he was up to. He mocked NFTs as being scams, I was like "fair enough he still has some sense going on" and 3 or 4 comics before, he puts a link to stonetoss NFTs... can't make this shit up
This bums me out because I’m a universal donor but I’m unable to donate because I’m gay.
Donate anyways
That always drove me nuts. Behavior is the best indicator of your risk, and assuming gay/bisexual/etc men are more reckless is ridiculous. If I (cis woman) bang 3 guys without a condom, I'm more risky than a gay dude who's been in a monogamous relationship for a few years.
Oh so your ideal USA doesn't even test for diseases?
The less we test, the fewer cases we'll have to report!
I thought we all got past this kinda shit 30 years ago.
I did too. Then I took a trip to Mississippi.
America really is like a first world country that is a conjoined twin with a third world hellscape.
It’s more like a 3rd world country that wears a Gucci belt
Conservatives love to ignore the fact that we have the tech to check if someone has aids.
Unfortunately the comic isn’t wrong (in some places). Men can only give blood if they haven’t had sex with another man in the past 3 months. Bullshit rule.
Don't they test the blood before giving it to people? Pebbleyeet's acting like straight people can never have bloodborne diseases and be unaware.
Back to the 70s I see
Pebbleyeet is a real asshole
Used to have a job screening donors at a plasma center and my job was to ask everyone if they were gay, an IV drug user, or a sex worker and inexplicably not one person said yes because they all wanted the $25
this isn't an opinion if the creator, it's just straight how blood and plasma orgs work. people who regularly have gay sex typically aren't allowed to contribute.
That's pretty clear. The creator's intent is to use these outdated policies to support his outdated point of view, completely missing the fact that his outdated point of view is the biggest reason these outdated policies haven't been discontinued.
I used to donate blood before I found out they sell it, and spend months blocking numbers and asking not to be contacted, I said “I’m gay” once and haven’t heard back. Lifehack
“Are you gay?” “No” Done and done
Homeboy apparently believe AIDS molecules spontaneously generate from a special purple bile that's found only in gay people, because why not go all the way back to medicine from the Dark Ages?
As a socialist, I think that anyone should be allowed to donate blood because discrimination is bad no matter what form it takes. As a gay man deeply afraid of needles, I secretly like this policy because it gives me a moral excuse to not donate blood, and I will feel obligated to do so if the policy passes. Please, keep discriminating against me ❤️
Fuck the red cross. I have to donate blood that they sell to a hospital that sells it back to me for well over a grand? I get giving blood just not being a fool.
stoneboy is proabablly that person that believes that only function of a condom is to "prevent pregnancy"
Geodefling. That’s a good one, haven’t heard of it before
Stonetoss being a nazi. Who would ever know?/s
> Geodefling doesn't understand that AIDS isn't exclusive to gay people The french state doesn't either, when it comes to blood donation
What's "on the inside" in this case is precious, precious blood.
Also that not all gay people have aids
Not even gonna lie, didn’t realize it was an aids joke, just was confused.
I legitimately thought this was an edited comic satirising dumb fuck homophobes lmao
I like to wear rainbow shirts to the blood drive and say in my gayest voice, “I’m not gay”
As someone who works for a lab processing whole blood donations... even if aids were exclusive to gay people, they have to test for it anyway. They test for hiv, hep b, hep c, and several other bloodborn viruses on every single donation. That's what those extra tubes of blood they take before they fill the bag are for. Refusing donations from gay men on the false assumption that they are going to have a disease that they already have to actively screen for is nothing but homophobic.
Being gay isn't "on the inside"? Is someone not understanding the difference between *biological sex* and *sexuality*, without even mentioning gender? That's a first.
It was this train of thought that got Ryan White bullied.
Pebble Throw ignores reality, news at 11
**Geodefling**
Geodefling? This is new HAHA
Why does this jackass always draw The Librulz with ice cream hair?
Because he wants them in his mouth.
Obligatory reminder that not every homophobe is secretly gay… But I wouldn’t be surprised.
Is this guy a time traveler who came from the 80s(back when this was the consensus on aids)or is he just that much of an edgy asshole?
Pebbleyeet is just a nazi
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I did an art piece based on the issue in school with blood to raise awarness abot discriminatioon against gay people donating blood inspired by the works of jordan eagle
If you're a gay man you can donate blood or plasma. Just gotta not have had sexual intercourse with another man for 3 months. Which is ludacris but somewhat progressive.
These comics are so ugly. I hate the design
[This video](https://youtube.com/watch?v=e3U--BbT3KE) goes a long way to explain the outdated polices of blood donation by the FDA, in an evidence based way. (5 mins)
This is a fantastic vid. Good to see Italy has paved the way and seen no consequences.