Mexico has lifted its blood donation ban for gay and
bisexual males, a change that went into effect on Christmas day. The ban, which
has been around for twenty years, experienced the beginning of the end in
August, when the country voted to lift it.
Mexico’s now former policy had explicitly banned gay and
bisexual men from donating blood. It claimed that their “practices” and
“increased probability of acquiring HIV or hepatitis infection” were the
reasons for the ban, but such discriminatory stereotypes are quickly losing
ground in the modern world. Instead, the ban now applies only to individuals
who have contracted HIV or hepatitis and their partners, regardless of sexual
orientation.
The ban also extends to those who engage in “risky sexual
practices” such as the “contact or exchange of blood, sexual secretions, or
other bodily secretions between someone who might have a transmittable disease
and areas of another person’s body through which an infectious agent might be
able to penetrate.”
Mexico’s National Council to Prevent Discrimination has long
fought to gain equal rights for all in Mexico, and applauded the new
regulations for taking a progressive step forward.
Other countries, such as the UK and China, have also
recently lifted blood-donation bans for gay men and lesbians. Unfortunately,
the United States has not yet joined that list and still bas blood donations by
gay and bisexual men, a law that has been around for nearly thirty years. But
with recent progressivism in the country, a ban lift is still a possibility in
the future for the United States. The question is only how long it will take us
to get there.
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