On the same day that the Food and Drug Administration issued a lifetime ban against gay men donating blood, I got an interesting e-mail from a reader whose office was in the midst of a company blood drive. Maybe you've been there too: the table's set up, the cookies are out, the nice volunteers are greeting people as you arrive to work, and then the uncomfortable questions begin.
Here's the scene one of my readers described yesterday:
We're having a blood drive here at work and the situation has gotten wildly out of control. Total strangers are coming up to people's desks and asking, "Why aren't you giving blood?"One of our senior managers, who didn't know gays weren't allowed to donate was basically outed in front of a dozen strangers in the lobby of our office building. We all agree that having a blood drive is a nice thing to do, but in typical corporate fashion, it's turned into a Gestapo interrogation.
I completely agree that it was handled horribly and have been put in a similar situation in various jobs over the years, although I will say people weren't nearly as aggressive as what I'm hearing happened over there. This has been going on for a very long time and it's time the Red Cross set up some new guidelines and restrictions for the people running the blood drives. It's bad enough we're ostracized from doing something charitable -- do we also have to feel victimized?
I can still remember in college getting into one of those blood drive trailers on the campus of Arizona State University as a young man (mainly to be near the frat boys running the thing, but still ...). I'll never forget the look of shear horror on their faces when I turned in that little questionnaire you had to fill out and two of my answers were "yes."
1. Do you weigh less than 110 pounds?
2. Are a male who has had sexual contact with another male, even once, since 1977?
3. Have you so much as thought of Haiti in your entire life? (Please leave now.)
(Cartoon source)
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Bloodless Coup?
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8 comments:
I recently wrote my HR director to ask them to stop having Red Cross blood drives onsite for this very reason.
It's appalling that the FDA still clings to these outdated, discriminatory and most of all unnecessary rules.
Wouldn't it be nice if people would boycott giving blood through the Red Cross because of this outdated screening process? Unfortunately, they hold a monopoly on the blood supply and such a boycott might endanger those innocent parties who might need the blood, so it's hardly a realistic option...
In the meantime, I would encourage anyone who was asked to give blood by a pushy volunteer to make the statement that they refuse to give blood until the organization changes their regulations so as to be non-discriminatory.
I was a high school teacher in the late 80s & early 90s, when this ban first went into effect. The student council would organize blood drives and then harass teachers they suspected were gay, hounding them about why they weren't donating blood. This was a Catholic school where coming out would have cost me my job. I've been angry with the Red Cross ever since. (I eventually quit and have never been even semi-closeted at work again.)
I had a fairly savvy blood driving entity on the campus where I went to school that added a question to the questionnaire: "Do you not wish to answer the questions on this form, but understand that the blood you donate today will be destroyed." Lets you go through the motions without outing yourself to a crowd.
Within the last six months, the university I work for had a Red Cross blood drive, with mass emails sent to the entire campus (around 2000 employees) saying how everyone is invited and encouraged to give blood. I sent email back to the nurse organizing the thing telling her that not exactly "everyone" was was invited, and how she could help gay people who didn't know the policy to not have to go through the pain of publically being rejected by just explaining who could donnate in the email.
She wrote back, thanking me for my concerns, then told me that she wanted to say something like that it her mass email, but when she ran it past the Red Cross, THEY WOULDN'T LET HER. And that's what bugged me. This wasn't the FDA -- this was the RED CROSS!
You know, this never really bothered me. Whenever some do-gooder at work asked me if I was going to give blood, I replied, "I'm sorry, they won't let me. I have had unsafe sex with hundreds of Haitian men." They would giggle uncomfortably and walk away. It shut them up pretty quickly.
What the hell is all the drama about giving blood. Can't you just say No, I passed out last time I gave, or i don't like needles or I don't want to. The Red Cross always seemed to be a bigoted, fundalmentalist Christian type of organization anyhow.....(that's a reason in it's own).
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