So, there's a blood drive at my school today and I was hoping to donate blood for the first time. I filled out the paper work, walked over to one of the buses, and one of the ladies in there asked me all these questions and took my blood to measure it for iron. After the questions she tells me I can't donate blood because I had sexual intercourse with a man in the past 12 months. "That's government for ya," she tells me. She thanked me for trying to donate, tho.

I was kind of let down as I walked out of the bus. It's seems to me that it's kind of set up so gay people can't donate blood. Safety first, I guess... Well, at least I was honest.

Has this happened to anyone else?

Gay blood is EVIL BLOOD!

But.................... I donated blood plenty of times when I was in high school 2009-2010.

I think it's a result of the AIDs scare.

This happened on Degrassi

Anywho,if they don't want tha blood,then let tha people die.

Gays can't donate in the Netherlands either. Belgium either, if I'm not mistaken. And gay marriage is legal here.

It's ridiculas because blood is screened before it is used for anyone else, and a person who is straight can also have HIV, just like a person who is gay.

If you are a man who has had sex with another man you are not able to donate blood in North America, regardless of your HIV status.

It is not an issue of safety first, because again they screen all blood before use.

A straight man who has sex with 50 women a year is more likely to have a disease than a gay man who is in a monogomous relationship with a male partner for the past 10 years, and yet the straight man can donate blood and the gay man cannot.

The example above proves that it is not an issue of safety, rather an issue of prejudice.

Yes - this is the law in the US. It's really quite sad - all blood is tested for any diseases/viruses/etc. anyways.

I swear it's 6 months now? :-/

It's not a US thing though. It's pretty much so in a lot of countries in Europe.

It has been this way for a while, stemming from an outdated belief that gay people are more likely to have HIV. It's an unfair policy and it doesn't make much sense because the blood is screened afterwards anyways.

Honestly, had you known about this policy beforehand, you should have just lied.

Didn't you know? AIDS is a homosexual disease.

I couldn't donate during the holidays because I had a new piercing... Just safety reasons I guess.