National
HHS to study lifting ban on gay blood donors
Four areas of concern cited
Sen. John Kerry (photo courtesy of kerry.senate.gov)
The Department of Health & Human Services has identified four areas of study to pursue before the regulatory ban on gay men donating blood can be lifted.
In a question-and-answer document requested by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) made public Tuesday, the department outlined steps that the Blood, Organ, and Tissue Safety Working Group have identified as necessary before gay and bisexual man are allowed to donate blood.
Proposed studies are aimed to address the following four issues:
* how the risk of blood transmissible diseases in the current donor population relate to risk factors in donors;
* the root cause of Quarantine Release Errors, or the accidental release of blood not cleared for use;
* if potential donors correctly understand the current questionnaire and if men who have sex with men would comply with modified deferral criteria; and
* if alternative screening strategy, such as pre- and post-qualifying donation infectious disease testing, for men who have sex with men would assure blood safety while enabling collection of data that could demonstrate safe blood collection.
Under current regulation, men who have had sex with other men since 1977 — even once — aren’t eligible to donate blood.
Last year, the Advisory Committee on Blood Safety & Availability for HHS voted to recommend that the ban not be changed and cited insufficient scientific data to support revision to the policy. However, the committee also recommended additional research to support a policy allowing low-risk gay and bisexual men to donate blood.
The Q&A prepared by HHS asserts that the department is evaluating these four concerns. To determine the relationship between the risk of transmitting blood diseases with risk factors in donors, HHS has this year instituted a study of baseline data. To determine potential errors in release of blood not cleared for use, HHS plans to hold a public workshop with blood establishments and stakeholders later this year.
“The Department’s Blood, Organ, Tissue Senior Executive Council is currently assessing how the above mentioned studies can be supported with limited resources to include long term monitoring through a national hemovigilance program (monitoring or surveillance of the blood supply and blood recipients),” the document states.
Asked whether HHS officials foresee an end to the gay donor ban, HHS doesn’t explicitly say whether the ban will come to end, but that the department is willing to revisit the issue after more information is gathered.
“The Department has worked to develop a plan that will yield scientific data that are currently needed to re-evaluate the policy based on the ACBSA,” HHS states. “When these studies are complete, the Department is committed to a full evidence-based evaluation of the policy. If the data indicate that a change is possible while protecting the blood supply, we will consider a change to the policy.”
In statements, Kerry and Quigley applauded HHS for taking additional steps to lift the ban on gay blood donors.
Kerry said he’s been “working on this a long time in a serious way” and is glad HHS “responded with concrete steps to finally remove this policy from the books.”
“HHS is doing their due-diligence and we plan to stay focused on the end game — a safe blood supply and an end to this discriminatory ban,” Kerry said.
Quigley said the announcement from HHS means “we’re moving in the direction of finally ending this antiquated and discriminatory policy.”
“Sen. Kerry and I will continue to push for a behavior-based screening process both in the name of fairness and a safer blood supply,” Quigley said.
LGBT advocates also praised HHS for taking steps toward allowing gay and bisexual men to donate blood.
Nathan Schaefer, director of public policy at the New York-based Gay Men’s Health Clinic, said he’s “pleased to see” the U.S. government take “critical steps to review outdated blood donation policies.”
“As this research agenda is pursued, GMHC will continue educating the public about the negative consequences of current blood donation policies, and advocating for revised policies that would allow low-risk gay men to donate blood and maintain the highest standard of blood safety,” Schaefer said.
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has struck down guidelines by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission designed to protect against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The EEOC in April 2024 updated its guidelines to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which determined that discrimination against transgender people constituted sex-based discrimination as proscribed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
To ensure compliance with the law, the agency recommended that employers honor their employees’ preferred pronouns while granting them access to bathrooms and allowing them to wear dress code-compliant clothing that aligns with their gender identities.
While the the guidelines are not legally binding, Kacsmaryk ruled that their issuance created “mandatory standards” exceeding the EEOC’s statutory authority that were “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent.”
“Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women,” he wrote in the opinion.
The case, which was brought by the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, presents the greatest setback for LGBTQ inclusive workplace protections since President Donald Trump’s issuance of an executive order on the first day of his second term directing U.S. federal agencies to recognize only two genders as determined by birth sex.
Last month, top Democrats from both chambers of Congress reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ-inclusive protections against discrimination into federal law, covering employment as well as areas like housing and jury service.
The White House
Trump travels to Middle East countries with death penalty for homosexuality
President traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates
Homosexuality remains punishable by death in two of the three Middle East countries that President Donald Trump visited last week.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the handful of countries in which anyone found guilty of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual relations could face the death penalty.
Trump was in Saudi Arabia from May 13-14. He traveled to Qatar on May 14.
“The law prohibited consensual same-sex sexual conduct between men but did not explicitly prohibit same-sex sexual relations between women,” notes the State Department’s 2023 human rights report, referring specifically to Qatar’s criminalization law. “The law was not systematically enforced. A man convicted of having consensual same-sex sexual relations could receive a sentence of seven years in prison. Under sharia, homosexuality was punishable by death; there were no reports of executions for this reason.”
Trump on May 15 arrived in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The State Department’s 2023 human rights report notes the “penalty for individuals who engaged in ‘consensual sodomy with a man'” in the country “was a minimum prison sentence of six months if the individual’s partner or guardian filed a complaint.”
“There were no known reports of arrests or prosecutions for consensual same-sex sexual conduct. LGBTQI+ identity, real or perceived, could be deemed an act against ‘decency or public morality,’ but there were no reports during the year of persons prosecuted under these provisions,” reads the report.
The report notes Emirati law also criminalizes “men who dressed as women or entered a place designated for women while ‘disguised’ as a woman.” Anyone found guilty could face up to a year in prison and a fine of up to 10,000 dirhams ($2,722.60.)
Trump returned to the U.S. on May 16.
The White House notes Trump during the trip secured more than $2 trillion “in investment agreements with Middle Eastern nations ($200 billion with the United Arab Emirates, $600 billion with Saudi Arabia, and $1.2 trillion with Qatar) for a more safe and prosperous future.”
Former President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2022.
Saudi Arabia is scheduled to host the 2034 World Cup. The 2022 World Cup took place in Qatar.
State Department
Rubio mum on Hungary’s Pride ban
Lawmakers on April 30 urged secretary of state to condemn anti-LGBTQ bill, constitutional amendment
More than 20 members of Congress have urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to publicly condemn a Hungarian law that bans Pride events.
California Congressman Mark Takano, a Democrat who co-chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, and U.S. Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.), who is the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Europe Subcommittee, spearheaded the letter that lawmakers sent to Rubio on April 30.
Hungarian lawmakers in March passed a bill that bans Pride events and allow authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify those who participate in them. MPs last month amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
“As a NATO ally which hosts U.S. service members, we expect the Hungarian government to abide by certain values which underpin the historic U.S.-Hungary bilateral relationship,” reads the letter. “Unfortunately, this new legislation and constitutional amendment disproportionately and arbitrarily target sexual and gender minorities.”
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government over the last decade has moved to curtail LGBTQ and intersex rights in Hungary.
A law that bans legal recognition of transgender and intersex people took effect in 2020. Hungarian MPs that year also effectively banned same-sex couples from adopting children and defined marriage in the constitution as between a man and a woman.
An anti-LGBTQ propaganda law took effect in 2021. The European Commission sued Hungary, which is a member of the European Union, over it.
MPs in 2023 approved the “snitch on your gay neighbor” bill that would have allowed Hungarians to anonymously report same-sex couples who are raising children. The Budapest Metropolitan Government Office in 2023 fined Lira Konyv, the country’s second-largest bookstore chain, 12 million forints ($33,733.67), for selling copies of British author Alice Oseman’s “Heartstopper.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who is gay, participated in the Budapest Pride march in 2024 and 2023. Pressman was also a vocal critic of Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
“Along with years of democratic backsliding in Hungary, it flies in the face of those values and the passage of this legislation deserves quick and decisive criticism and action in response by the Department of State,” reads the letter, referring to the Pride ban and constitutional amendment against public LGBTQ events. “Therefore, we strongly urge you to publicly condemn this legislation and constitutional change which targets the LGBTQ community and undermines the rights of Hungarians to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.”
U.S. Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Sarah McBride (D-Del.), Jim Costa (D-Calif.), James McGovern (D-Mass.), Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), Summer Lee (D-Pa.), Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Julie Johnson (D-Texas), Ami Bera (D-Calif.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Gabe Amo (D-R.I.), Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), Dina Titus (D-Nev.), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) signed the letter alongside Takano and Keating.
A State Department spokesperson on Wednesday declined to comment.
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Chilean lawmakers back report that calls for suspension of program for trans children
Ashley Biden to speak at Blade’s Summer Kickoff Party in Rehoboth Beach
Pete Buttigieg, eyeing a presidential run, holds Iowa town hall
Calendar: May 16-22
Documentary about Blade reporter to premiere this month
