Discrimination was live and visible on our campus this week as Canadian Blood Services set up a booth
in the Agora. Indeed, Canadian Blood Services has a policy which bans any man who has had sex with a man even once since 1977 from donating blood. As such, Canadian Blood Services is encouraging discrimination in the public domain — and something must be done about it. Normally when one group is prejudice against another group, people rise up and protest, but in this case it did not happen.

Lakehead University’s policy prohibits discrimination which they define as “action(s) or behaviour(s) that results in the unfavourable or adverse treatment or preferential treatment of individuals or groups…This can include the refusal to provide goods, services of facilities; refusal to work with someone etc.” Accordingly, until Canadian Blood Services stops enforcing their ban on gay men, we should not allow them to have a presence on our “discrimination free” campus. LUSU has actually tried to deal with this issue in the past and has even attempted to have a blood ban on campus, which, if nothing else (because the blood ban didn’t occur), raised awareness about this issue. However, since Canadian Blood Services discriminatory policy against gay men remains the same, we have to keep struggling with this same old battle.

The issue here is not just about donating blood, it’s about the message it sends which causes gays to be even further ostracized. Canadian Blood Services discriminatory policy reinforces the stereotype that all gay men lead “risky” lifestyles. It also makes people believe that, yes, gay men are likely to have HIV and AIDS . The truth is that there are many gay males in committed relationships who are at a significantly lower risk for contracting HIV than many straight males and females outside of relationships. Furthermore, today’s statistics show an almost even split in the number of sexually transmitted cases of HIV infection between queers and heterosexuals. As such, the policy should reflect this fact and should assess individuals’ risk based on their behaviours, rather than their sexual orientation.

T. Helle
Gender Issues Centre