The US is currently experiencing a much publicised blood shortage crisis, yet the Red Cross still upholds a ban on gay or bisexual men donating who have had a same-sex sexual experience in the last year. Many are up in arms over the archaic decision, especially as a 2014 study carried out by the University of California estimated that lifting the restrictions on said blood donations in the US alone could increase the country’s blood supply by 615,000 pints per year.

Blood banks in over 40 countries still ban sexually active gay and bisexual men from donating either indefinitely, or for a lengthy period of time after they last had sex with another man, even if they practice safe sex in a monogamous relationship.

American Red Cross who accepts anybody’s blood just told me I can’t donate because I’m gay..

— danny fenty (@SincerelyDaniel) May 29, 2018

While the anger against the Red Cross decision is understandable, it is far from solitary. Frenchman Laurent Drelon recently took a case to The European Court of Human Rights seeking to scrap the ban. He contended that the ban was discriminatory as it breached his right to privacy by compelling him to reveal his sexuality prior to making a donation. Still ongoing, the case could have wide ranging implications for other EU member states, including Ireland, operating a similar ban.

Recently, the Peter Tatchell Foundation issued a challenge to governments worldwide to ‘Screen the Blood Not The Sexuality‘.

Tatchell himself said, “These restrictions may have made sense when first enforced in the 1980s at a time when HIV was primarily affecting gay and bisexual men in the West and when HIV testing methods were less accurate. But long ago HIV ceased to be allied to any particular sexual orientation and the testing of donated blood is now very exhaustive and accurate.”

He continued, “It is time that blood banks worldwide focused more on identifying and excluding individuals who’ve engaged in high risk behavior – regardless of whether they are gay or straight – instead of making assumptions that all gay and bisexual men are a high risk of HIV.”