Gay Stuff: Denmark To Allow Gay Men To Donate Blood
While the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States has already overturned its ban on blood donations by gay men, other countries haven’t been as quick to follow suit. But that doesn’t mean that progress hasn’t been made over the years. In fact, Denmark has recently announced that it will be allowing gay men to donate blood by 2019.
According to The Copenhagen Post, the Danish health minister Ellen Trane Nørby revealed that the government will now be allowing gay men to donate blood. The move aims to modernize the Danish blood donation system to better embrace gender equality. The change will take effect in 2019.
Under the new law, gay me will be allowed to donate blood so long as they have been in a monogamous relationship with one partner. Those who are not in a monogamous relationship will be allowed to donate after a quarantine period of four months.
The Danish law is much more relaxed than the one implemented by the US FDA. Gay men are allowed to donate blood in the United States 12 months after their last sexual encounter with a man. The United Kingdom previously also imposed a 12-month deferral period, but relaxed the rules in 2017. In the UK, gay men are now only required to abstain from anal or oral sex for 12 weeks before being able to give blood.
Other countries that still have an indefinite deferral — effectively a ban — for gay men donating blood include Algeria, Austria, Bolivia, China, Croatia, Estonia, Greece, Iceland, Lebanon, Lithuania, Malaysia, Malta, the Philippines, Singapore, Slovenia, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine, and Venezuela.
Do any of you Adam4Adam blog readers live in the countries where there is still an indefinite deferral for gay men donating blood? Do you know if any steps are being done to change this? Share it with us in the comments section below.
As long as the blood is tested, why should we care who donates?
I must admit, there is at least some progress about this issue, it was not that long ago people were screaming in the streets refusing to accept blood if it wasnt pure and matching thier own race. That particular ignorant bias was prevalent with all races and nationalities. Despite being able to detect the HIV antibodies, this so called common sense approach of quarantining the blood donor based on the last time you slept with a man, dont matter a person can also get it from the opposite sex too.
How about we all get our blood supply from pristine sources like the maternity wards from all the hospitals and from prisons where of course, sex between prisoners are not authorized. I suppose that a person imprisioned can dobate using a preapproved scale for everyone. A full day removed from the original sentence for every 2 gallons withdrawn fron a qualified prison nurse. Hey, if i had a choice between getting a cookie or juice drink or getting a day knocked off from a 50 year life sentence… I’d ask….whats in your cookie sweety.
I wonder if those organizations are aware that gay men are already donating and been donating blood. I do not, but there are many pillars of the community married men who are in the closet and donate blood on the regular basis.
Best comment I ever read on here Andrew. You’re absolutely right.
Given the activities in so many of the profiles here, I’d say the quarantines are entirely warranted.
What a joke. Who’s going to defer sex to give blood? Monogamy? Hahahahaha. So, they decide to take risks with public health to better embrace gender equality. How progressive of them, eh? Gee, maybe they ought to have hands on sexual education for 1st graders, too.
Great law! Oh wait, what if your partner is cheating on you? There goes that theory. Looks good on paper.
This while idea is nothing more than another form of homophobia and gay bashing band it doesn’t deserve coverage or our attention.