Seattle City Council Backs End to Gay Blood Donation Ban

The City Council of Seattle, Wash., unanimously backed a repeal of America's longstanding ban on gay and bisexual men donating blood, reports Gay Star News today.

Seattle is now the 60th U.S. city to recommend a change in this policy.

Legislators including Council President Tim Burges and Councilmembers Sally Clark, Sally Bagshaw, Jean Godden, Bruce Harrell, Nick Licata, Mike O'Brien, Tom Rasmussen and Kshama Sawant signed a letter to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg urging the government to screen donors based on risky behavior rather than sexual orientation.

"Denying gay and bisexual men the opportunity to donate blood based on their sexual orientation is an outdated and discriminatory practice," they wrote. "We've advanced in our medical knowledge of HIV transmission and know transmission depends on behavioral risk factors. Donor screening for gay and bisexual men should be the same as for all other people and be based on a risk assessment of behaviors, rather than on sexual orientation."

On the Seattle City Council webpage, Councilmember Clark said that sexual orientation should not dictate whether someone is able to help save a life, and argued that "any other person would be screened based on a risk assessment of their behavior. We're only asking that gay and bisexual men also have that opportunity."

Legislators noted that many of them were regular blood donors, and that the city offered paid time off for employees who wanted to donate to city-sponsored blood drives. They wanted that for the past 30 years, LGBT city employees had been unable to donate blood because of this policy.

"We recognize the importance of a sustained and healthy blood supply," wrote legislators in their letter. "We have also heard from members of our city's LGBT employees association SEqual who are willing and ready to donate. It's time to change the policy so that people can give to our nation's blood supply regardless of sexual orientation."

Local LGBT activists applauded the move, with SEqual co-chairs Aretha Alexander and Travis Taylor saying:

"We are encouraged by the action of the City Council to raise awareness of the FDA's discriminatory policy excluding gay men and women that have sexual contact with bisexual men from giving blood. For nearly 30 years our gay city employees have been unable to donate blood at City co-sponsored blood drives because of this federal policy. It is long overdue that the FDA enacts a policy based on science and risk factors, not fear and ignorance. Thank you, Seattle City Council, for recognizing this inequity."