Hot on the heels of the United Kingdom, which ended their gay blood donor ban in favour of a one year deferral last week, Canadian Blood Services is now mulling a similar change.

Canada’s permanent deferral on blood donations from men who have had sex with another man—even once—has never been scientifically sound; on top of that, the ban has been increasingly difficult to defend as more and more countries shed the practice. CBS has gone through several revisitations of the issue, but they always ended up being more theatrics than science, opting for the status quo. Somehow, though, I think this time will be different. Heck, even Russia, which is pretty darn anti-gay, has ended their lifetime ban on gay donors.

The identically cautious adoption of a one-year deferral is based on the rationale that particularly dangerous contaminants, such as HIV and hepatitis B, are undetectable for a period of time. Since all blood donations are tested for blood-borne contaminants, a period of a few months is really all that’s necessary, but donor clinics want to be especially vigilant, so a 12 month buffer makes sense.

And yet, I still find this change problematic.

As I’ve pointed out many times before, the problem isn’t the length of the ban (although forever was clearly a bit excessive), but rather the question that triggers it. This question essentially singles out sexual orientation instead of sexual behavior, treating many safe donors as risky, and many risky donors as safe. Monogamous gay couples, for example, are still effectively banned by the questionnaire, while a straight man that has unprotected sex with hundreds of partners is treated like an ideal donor, despite being a far greater risk.

This problem shouldn’t be difficult to resolve. The question could be replaced with something along the lines of: “Have you had more than one sexual partner in the last year?” followed by “Has your sexual partner had more than one sexual partner in the last year?” Answering yes to either could trigger the deferral without singling out sexual orientation and would likely even improve the quality of the blood supply by catching risky straight donors in addition to gay ones.

But, hey, these things are slow, so I’ll take ending the ban as a baby step in the right direction. Kinda.

• Blood-donation ban for gay men gets 2nd look [CBC News]

The United Kingdom has removed its lifetime ban on blood donations from gay men, replacing it with a one year deferral since the last time a donor has had sex with someone of the same gender.

So, yeah—essentially, nothing has changed.

Well, I suppose at the very least it’s an acknowledgement that the lifetime ban (which Canada still has, incidentally) was never scientifically sound. Nonetheless, I wish that questionnaires would stop singling out gay men and simply ask about risky sexual practices for everyone. This can include the number of sexual partners, whether or not the donor has unprotected sex, is non-monogamous, etc.

In western nations, gay men undeniably have a higher incidence of STDs, but heterosexuals are far from immune; in fact, the fastest growing HIV demographic in Canada is young heterosexual women, accounting for a quarter of all new infections. I have no reason to doubt the situation is similar in the UK, yet monogamous gay couples are deferred for a year every time they have sex, even if both partners have been tested—simply because they’re gay. Silly.

•  One-year blood donation deferral for UK gay men [Pink News UK]

An unofficial Gay-Straight Alliance at St Joseph Catholic Secondary School in Mississauga, Ontario has been forbidden from displaying any rainbows at their information booth.

The school board had already banned official Gay-Straight Alliances—important peer support groups to help reduce incidences of bullying—in their schools (thus the “unofficial” nature of this group), but apparently that didn’t go far enough. “They said rainbows were associated with Pride,” Leanne Iskander, who founded the GSA, told Xtra this week. “There’s so many other things a rainbow could be. It’s ridiculous.”

Nevertheless, the group managed to sneak in some hidden rainbows by baking cupcakes with batter in all of the rainbow’s colours. They weren’t allowed to donate the proceeds to GLBT charities like LGBT Youth Line, mind you. Instead they were forced to choose a Catholic charity. (Thankfully not Exodus, an “ex-gay” organisation which is still a registered charity in Canada, cough sign-the-petition cough, cough.)

At any rate, congratulations to Leanne and the amazing GSA! Despite the artificial and ridiculous hurdles being tossed in your way by a terrified school board, you guys rock. Keep it up!

• Rainbows banned at Mississauga Catholic school [Xtra]

Catholic schools in Ontario are continuing to fight gay-straight alliances from forming, despite pleas from students to allow them.

GSAs are an effective means of reducing homophobic bullying, improving student safety and decreasing the number of gay teen suicides. For this reason, the Ontario Ministry of Education has strongly recommended that all publicly funded schools include GSAs if the students request one. This recommendation is meant to include the Catholic school system which, despite being a religious organisation, is still publicly funded.

Understanding that outright bans on GSAs generate bad press, however, Catholic schools have begun adopting a new strategy to avoid acknowledging their GLBT students. When requested by students to allow the formation of a GSA, these schools launch a replacement club: One that teaches about all kinds of tolerance and diversity instead of focusing on gay issues.

Gosh that sounds just lovely and—RUN, KIDS! It’s a trap!

You see, rather than accept the most effective means to increase student safety for GLBT students, these ostensibly inclusive groups just re-enforce the discrimination that makes gay students feel so isolated in the first place.

At a GSA meeting in Mississauga, for example, the school’s principal entered unexpectedly and drew a big umbrella on the chalkboard to indicate that their club will have to talk about issues that affect everyone instead of homophobia, effectively silencing the entire school’s GLBT student body. Separately, and more troublingly, training documents for the Halton Catholic School Board’s new GSA replacement called “SIDE spaces,” declares that “gay is not an identity,” and that gay students are “immoral and sinful.”

Most of these kinds of stories aren’t even making it to the media. I’ve now received several emails from students across the country who have had their requests for a GSA turned down. An email I received just yesterday from an Ontario student highlights exactly the same sort of ineffective replacement club that these schools are foisting upon students to silence them:

Our school’s nun decided to be our [GSA] leader, but we had to change the name of the group to be inclusive of all aspects of discrimination.

Project CAT (Project Creating Awareness Together) was what our GSA became. That would have been totally fine with me, had it not been obvious that we weren’t to speak too much about homophobia in the group.

SIDE spaces, Project CAT, and large umbrellas. I could be greatly mistaken here, but something tells me this isn’t quite what the students had in mind when they requested the formation of a GSA.

The good news, though, is that students are fighting for safety, visibility, and inclusion. I like the way that Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, the program director for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, put it: “This issue is not going away,” she told the Halton Catholic School Board during their April 5^th board meeting. “Students are empowered. Students know their rights. Students want gay-positive groups in their schools, and they will fight for them.”

Students are already proving Noa right. So, if you’re hoping to get a GSA formed in your school, keep fighting for it! Government organisations such as the Ontario Ministry of Education is on your side, and as long as you guys know your rights and keep up the pressure, these schools will eventually have to comply with their recommendations if they want to keep their public funding.

• Halton Catholic school board imposes silent ban on GSAs [Xtra]
• Mississauga GSA meeting hijacked by principal [Xtra]

Update, April 2: For anyone who doesn’t like to check calendars on a regular basis: Yes, this announcement—and the accompanying terrible illustration—was an April Fools joke. The rest of the post is real though, so good luck to Mr. Lomaga with his blood ban case!

If you’re a gay man in Canada and have had sex even once since 1977, you are permanently banned from donating blood in the country. If you’re surprised by this, you likely haven’t tried donating blood for a very, very long time. This policy has been on the books for about thirty years now, despite having organisations like the Red Cross come out against it.

Nonetheless, Canadian Blood Services has rested stubbornly with the policy. The organisation even launched a successful court case against Kyle Freeman, a gay man, for having donated blood against the organisation’s policy two years ago. While that case ultimately ruled in favour of CBS because they were not a government organisation and therefore not subject to Canada’s charter of rights, the policy is about to be tested again.

Adrian Lomaga, a Montréal student, is challenging the gay blood ban policy of Héma-Québec (which is more likely to be ruled as a government organisation) on April 4. In response, Héma-Québec is suing Health Canada (clearly a government organisation), saying that if they lose this case, it’s the fault of their parent organisation for forcing the policy on them.

I’ve always been confused by the gay blood ban. Defining the exclusion group as haphazardly as “gay men” is likely considerably more harmful to the blood supply than other proposed alternatives. For one, it perpetuates the myth that all gay men have tainted blood. On top of that, it fails to catch heterosexuals who may engage in far riskier sexual practices than a monogamous gay man. A wiser system would shift the focus on the number of partners a donor has, as well as whether or not the donor engages in risky sexual practices—such as not using condoms. HIV and other blood-borne infectants don’t care about the gender of their host, after all.

So, good luck to Adrian Lomaga! May you soon have large needles inserted into your veins, and your blood removed in large quantities!

• Second gay blood ban case heads to court [Xtra]