i know... but my friend said there would be nothing to worry about.. obviously she lied to me

Whoever is enforcing that rule, I would like to shit in their mouth. That is not fuckin' okay. You're not postive, so WTF are these people thinking?!

Homophobia... not a habit to break easily for some institutions... so much for the government doing ALL they can to help

yeah... federal regulations here in the U.S. bar men who have had sex with men even once since 1977 from donating blood or platelets as well

Too bad you couldn't just lie Ash

That situation really sucks.

i'm really sorry about your brother and this situation. it really sucks, especially since your brothers. he should be allowed to choose even if they see it as high risk.

gays can't donate here either!

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i am so suprised and sickened by this. people can be so illogical.

i'm also so sorry to hear about your brother's illness ash.
stay strong and be there for each other, you'll get through this.

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you pretend you're high
pretend you're bored
pretend you're anything
just to be adored

I know with your brother where your priorities lie but can I also just say how positively fucking atrocious it is that you aren't "allowed" to help when you perfectly well know you can, really, Stonewall should be told about this and they should initiate a PR/media blitz surrounding this unacceptable state of affairs, people should really be made aware of this wholesale discrimination that is LITERALLY affecting your brother's health.

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*Huggy Ragnarsson Is My Co-Pilot*

"coming up on kittyradio, an erotic thriller featuring Shannon Tweed..."

you know what's funny, how they can classify gays as 'high risk' yet if they were to do the same thing regarding black people it would be considered discrimination.

i agree, i really think something should be done about this. it's got to be the most fucked up thing i've heard in like, ages. media circus ftw!

it's discrimination no matter who it is.

The ban is reasonably well-known. There have been protests etc. [in the UK], but the regulators still stubbornly cling on it for some reason. I don't even know what they get out of it, when there's a desperate shortage of donors.

It's also obviously completely illogical, given that a straight, married man who had one same-sex experience in 1965 faces a lifetime ban while IV drug users and prostitutes do not

baleeted post.

They kick up now and then, what happens is, they insist that they're just being cautious and that gay people are a high-risk group, your heteroids puss out of saying all the stuff about blacks and sex workers that you do on the Internet, they win, y'all get bored, and it goes away for another couple of years. And of course, no-one going to listen to the gays on this, because they have a vested interest and are clearly just trying to get the law changed for their own selfish reasons (like wanting to selfishly donate blood).

Yeah, when i went to go give blood there was this dead insensitive nurse who said they dont accept gays blood as well as prostitutes and drug addicts... nice mixture to be put among. Thanks people for ur kind words... Its a nasty situation. I wish there was summat i could do

I dunno. Make a scene I guess. I'm not sure how these things work. You'd think that the recipient would be able to sign something to say that, if he gets dirty gaymosexual AIDS from your donation, he won't hold the hospital accountable. I mean, the reason for this is at least given as liability - that they don't want to be accountable if someone gets dirty AIDS blood or whatever, so they discount a whole demographic of people. But if it's going from one specific donor to one specific recipient, there's absolutely no logical or even arguable reason not to have you tested and then let you donate, far as I can see.

But don't be mad about being gay. It's them that are cunts, not you. If your brother dies because they won't allow you to donate, it will be their fault, not yours.

Cheers mister... its just horrible having an integral part of my life being slandered and judged and ostracised when all i wanna do is help someone. i feel as though ive been made to feel sinful and dirty and ive never felt like that before. I've always accepted being gay and been happy with it but since this whole scenario kicked up i've just felt so useless and a failure in some respects. Its the 21st century... i guess in some respects gays are no better off

I think this is the thing, these little injustices manage to slip through the cracks, because the majority think gays have equal rights now purely because a few of them have their own TV shows.

But yeah, it makes me angry, it's like not letting black people be in the police force because they're all criminals or some stupid thing. I just don't see any way of persuading anyone who was thick and ignorant enough to introduce the rule in the first place.

Yup... gay men in the media piss me off... Making everything seem so light and fluffy all the time... I hate it when i speak to people who assume being gay is about being and acting like Graham Norton, Will and Grace etc... its annoying.

It's the promiscuity aspect that's the worst though. Find me one gay guy in the media, for all the acceptance we apparently have, who isn't at any point hinted at being a total slut, if not screaming it out for all the world to see. There's that kid in Dawson's Creek, and that's about it, far as I can tell. We're not accepted, we're just fetishised.