Local
Local gay student blocked from making blood donation despite FDA easing policy
Red Cross acknowledges delays, study to examine further change
A gay D.C. native otherwise qualified to donate blood was denied that chance at a local hospital, demonstrating that obstacles remain after the FDA eased its ban on gay donations — even as the agency has set up a pilot study to assess lifting the blanket policy altogether.
Aubrey Lay, a 19-year-old student at the College of William & Mary, told the Washington Blade after the FDA eased its policy last month he registered with his family at Children’s National Hospital, a D.C.-based pediatrics center, in hopes of making a contribution under the belief he’d meet the new requirements.
“As a gay man, I was very excited that the FDA had relaxed its guideline restrictions on MSM donating blood, however imperfect this change may be,” Lay said. “This meant that for the first time since graduating high school, I would be able to donate blood.”
Lay said he would have been ineligible to donate under the former rule requiring 12 months of abstinence for gay men, but believed he would have been eligible under the new rules requiring only three months. Although the hospital’s website had the old information online, Lay said he proceeded to his appointment on April 29 under the “wishful thinking” the hospital would accept him.
But Lay was ultimately blocked from making a donation.
“It turned out I was giving them the benefit of the doubt where I shouldn’t have,” Lay said. “I signed in and had my intake interview during which I explained my sexual history, and that I had last had sexual contact in early January, over the three-month limit. After answering all these questions, I got my finger pricked and iron levels checked, and height, weight, [blood pressure] taken. Only then was I told that I would not be able to donate because the hospital’s policy has not yet caught up to national standards.”
Lay said he was “shaken” by the experience, having wanted to make a blood donation to help out as the nation battles the coronavirus crisis.
As evidence going to the hospital was a risk he didn’t take lightly, Lay said it was the first time he’d left his house in a month because he and his family took the Virginia stay-at-home order “very seriously.”
“I certainly would not have risked my own health, and that of others, had I known I would be turned away,” Lay said.
Amid the blood shortage during the coronavirus pandemic, the FDA last month announced it would ease the ban on blood donations for various groups, including men who have sex with men.
The earlier ban, established in 2015, required gay men to be abstinent for 12 months before making a donation, but the new policy eased those restrictions, requiring a deferral period of three months.
Before 2015, the FDA had a lifetime ban on blood donations from men who have had sex with men. The policy was implemented in 1983 at the height of the AIDS epidemic based on fears donations from gay men would allow HIV to enter the blood supply.
Lay, upon being denied the ability to donate blood, said he found the office of the hospital’s president next to the blood donation room and sought an audience.
The president, Lay said, apologized for the confusion and connected him with the doctor in charge of the blood bank. The doctor, Lay said, told him the hospital’s computer systems were interlaced with the new policy and — in normal times without coronavirus — it would take a month to disentangle them and make them consistent with the new policy.
The website for the Children’s National Hospital has been updated and no longer indicates it follows the earlier 12-month policy, but is in the process of making a transition to conform to the new guidance by June 2020.
A Children’s National Hospital spokesperson confirmed the center is still in the process of updating its policy for gay donors and expects resolution next month.
“We have the deepest appreciation for all our blood donors and see every day how their donation saves lives,” the spokesperson said. “We take every step to adhere to all regulations around blood donation and are working to update our policies, donor questionnaire and computer systems to align to the new FDA regulations. The FDA just approved the donor questionnaire for sites to use and we are hoping to have all policies in place in June. We encourage anyone who would like to donate to make an appointment and double check on the eligibility before coming in.”
Lay’s story isn’t unique as other gay men have reported being unable to donate blood after the FDA eased its ban. Whether or not each of these men expected to meet the requirements under the new deferral period of three months is unclear.
Gay TV personality Andy Cohen says he was denied the chance to donate, even though his plasma would be rich in the antibody for COVID-19. Lukus Estok, a young gay man who recovered from COVID-19, also told his story about being denied the opportunity to make a donation at the New York Blood Center. His Facebook post went viral on social media and was featured in a Good Morning America article.
Mathew Lasky, a spokesperson for the LGBTQ media watchdog GLAAD, which has been leading calls for a change in blood policy, said more and more stories are emerging of LGBTQ people being blocked from making donations despite the recent change.
“GLAAD is continuing to pressure the FDA to put science above stigma, and to remove any time-based deferral on gay and bisexual men, and others in the LGBTQ community, donating blood,” Lasky said. “In the meantime, it’s critical for individual blood centers to begin adhering to the new FDA guidelines as not to continue needlessly discriminating against LGBTQ people, and to address the critical blood supply shortages we’re seeing during COVID-19.”
The American Red Cross, which had called for the FDA to shorten its deferral period from the 12 months to three months before the new policy was implemented, cautioned via a spokesperson the implementation of updated rules “will take time.”
“As the largest blood provider in the country, we are working to implement the updated FDA eligibility changes and will provide an update on timeline in the near future,” the spokesperson said. “It’s important to note that the implementation process includes potentially thousands of individuals and involves complex system updates that do take time. We are working to develop a reinstatement process to share with potential donors in the near future.”
UPDATE: A Red Cross spokesperson after publication of this article told the Blade a June 1 target date has been set for full implementation of the FDA policy change.
“The American Red Cross is working to implement the updated FDA eligibility changes on June 1,” the spokesperson said. “We just want to emphasize that this process includes potentially thousands of individuals and involves system updates that will take time to implement.”
Even as blood centers work to update their system to conform to the new policy, LGBTQ advocates have said the change is insufficient and the FDA should scrap its deferral requirements entirely for men who have sex with men and instead implement a policy based on individual risk assessment. Such a policy could enable, for example, monogamous gay men or gay men with safe sex practices to make blood donations.
Among those calling for this change is California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who last month led a letter to the Department of Health & Human Services with 19 other attorneys general urging the Trump administration to abandon the deferral period, citing the success of other countries, such as Spain, Italy and Portugal, that have implemented gender-neutral policies.
Many voices have emerged calling for any and all obstacles to gay men making blood donations being lifted because testing could determine whether a blood donation has HIV. Experts, however, say some caution is necessary as a window exists between donation and testing in which the test wouldn’t be able to determine if a donation was free of the virus.
Scott Schoettes, counsel and the HIV Project Director at Lambda Legal, articulated that warning in a conference call last month with reporters.
“People believe that it catches all new cases of HIV or new cases of Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, other blood borne infections,” Schoettes said. “That is not the case. There is still a window period during which that testing would not uncover a newly acquired infection.”
But in a rare situation of hitting both the gas and brake at the same time amid a policy change, the FDA has indicated the agency also is in the early stages of a pilot program to determine whether or not the ban can be changed further in favor of a risk-based assessment.
Megan McSeveney, an FDA spokesperson, confirmed the agency is set to begin the study with “about 2,000 men who have sex with men and who would be willing to donate blood.”
“This study, being conducted at community health centers in key locations across the United States, could generate data that will help the FDA determine if a donor questionnaire based on individual risk assessment would be as effective as time-based deferrals in reducing the risk of HIV,” McSeveney said.
The Red Cross is participating in the efforts to ensure a new risk-based policy as opposed to a deferral period will keep the blood supply safe, a spokesperson for the non-profit said.
“We are very early in the study – we are currently finalizing the content of the new questions, and developing the specifics of the protocols, including site selection, which then will require government and ethical review board approval,” the spokesperson said. “The results of testing in combination with the responses to the questionnaire will be used to determine the value of the questions in interdicting new HIV infections.”
Based on the limited information of the study, there’s no indication a change will, in fact, follow eliminating the deferral period for gay men entirely in favor of a risk-based assessment.
Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO of GLAAD, said in a statement the pilot study was wholly necessary given medical experts who say any kind of deferral period is “stigma, not science.”
“During the current crisis, the FDA is wasting time and money on a pilot study when all the scientific research and medical authorities plainly state that gay and bi man should not be restricted from donating blood,” Ellis said. “All blood donations, regardless of sexual orientation, are screened to ensure healthy samples and now the American Medical Association, leading elected officials, and more than 600 medical professionals have all done the work for the FDA and unequivocally state that this ban needs to end.”
Lay, caught in the middle of reconsideration of the policy, said he awaits the day when the restrictions are changed so LGBTQ people can finally donate blood at a time when their help is needed.
“Because of this crisis, blood donation centers should not be turning people away at the door who are by all measures qualified donors, risking their health and the health of those around them by their very presence in these spaces,” Lay said. “It is so important that we make this discrepancy between policy and practice known so that we can push for more transparency in blood donation, and hopefully full implementation of the new policy, albeit imperfect.”
District of Columbia
Pride faith services in Washington, D.C.
Almost half of all LGBTQ adults in the U.S. are religious
Are you an LGBTQ person of faith or someone exploring spirituality? It is more common than people realize. According to a Williams Institute study published in October 2020, almost half of all LGBTQ adults in the United States are religious. This may seem counterintuitive as any LGBTQ people have complicated relationships with faith because of very real histories of abuse, trauma, and violence.
This violence still continues in the United States, especially following the Supreme Court’s March 2026 decision in Chiles v. Salazar, who ruled Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors violates the First Amendment, but not everyone has encountered this violence, nor do people who have faced it, separate themselves completely from religion. Many people may seek out affirming faith traditions which are prevalent in the DMV area.
For individuals seeking out faith services during Pride 2026, please check out the list below, which will be updated as more events are publicized.
Memorial Service for SaVanna Wanzer
May 17th at 1 pm
Westminster Presbyterian Church (400 I St SW, Washington, DC 20024)
Westminster Presbyterian will host a celebration of life for legendary DC trans rights activist and founder of DC Trans Pride and Black Trans Pride SaVanna Wanzer who was a long-time member of the church. Live music will begin at 12:15 pm before the start of the memorial service. The service will be livestreamed on the Westminster DC Facebook page. A meal will follow the Sunday service.
There will also be a celebratory vigil held on Saturday, May 16th from 6:30-8 pm for friends and family at the church led by LGBTQ organizer Raycee Pendarvis.
May 23th at 11 am
Downtown Westin (999 9th Street NW, Washington, DC 20001)
This intimate conversation is hosted by Janeé Lee, founder of Queer Ministry, between Black trans and queer people who are surviving religious trauma and navigating their relationship with the church. The workshop, hosted as part of Trans Pride DC, is a chance for people to share their stories at the intersection of queerness and spirituality and to walk away with a spiritual healing guide with affirming scriptures and inclusive theology.
DC Black Pride Worship Service
May 24th at 10 am
Remnant Christian Center (120 West Hampton Avenue, Capitol Heights, MD)
Hosted by The Community Church of Washington DC-UCC, this service will feature speakers and sessions on Black queer faith and unity, including host and speaker Robert D. Wise Jr. for a powerful Pentecost Unity Service. Attendees are encouraged to come dressed in and white.
June 5th at 7 pm
Sixth & I (600 I Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001)
Join Rabbi Jenna will be leading an inclusive, musical service celebrating the diversity of Jewish life in Washington, DC. Happy Hour, which is limited to people 21 and older, will start at 6 pm. The service will start at 7 pm, with dinner at 8:15 pm. The service is free but registration is required, and the kosher-style pescatarian meal does cost money. Register online here.
June 14th at 5 pm
Black Cat (1811 14th St NW, Washington, DC 20009)
Muslim Pride is a community-led and funded grassroots performance series centering queer and trans Muslim artists through music, drag and dance. The series was originally founded in 2020 as a way to create affirming spaces where faith, culture, and queerness can coexist. This year’s series features Mercedes Iman Diamond. This year, Muslim Pride expands to Washington, DC, New York City, and Los Angeles. Buy tickets here.
Pride Celebrations and Sunday Worship Service
June 14th all day
Riverside Baptist Church (699 Maine Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20024)
Join Riverside Baptist Church for a day-long Pride celebration beginning with Pride Weekend/Musical Theater Sunday worship service at 10 am. Later that morning and early afternoon, from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm, the church will be hosting a Pride Pageant, a technicolor celebration featuring a runway showcase, line dancing, food, and refreshments.
June 22nd at 7 pm
St. Mark’s Episocpal Church (301 A Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003)
Join this interfaith service celebrating affirming faith traditions and intertradition dialogue hosted by queer and trans faith leaders. The interfaith service has been hosted annually for over 40 years, and first began back in the 1980s with faith leaders and queer people of faith coming together to mourn and pray at the site of the AIDS Memorial Quilt on the National Mall. Learn more about the history of the interfaith service here.
June 23rd at 6 pm
Holy Trinity Catholic Church (3513 N St NW, Washington, DC 20007)
Holy Trinity will be hosting its 6th annual Pride Mass. After its debut this past summer, the Pride Mass choir will be singing at the Pride Mass in June, and following the Mass, there will be an annual reception with ice cream and other goodies. Learn more about attending the reception and Holy Trinity’s LGBTQ+ Ministry.
Delaware
Blade Foundation awards 9th journalism fellowship to AU student
Thomas Weaverling will cover LGBTQ issues in Delaware this summer
The Blade Foundation this week announced the recipient of its 2026 Steve Elkins Memorial Fellowship in Journalism is Thomas Weaverling, who is scheduled to graduate from American University with a degree in communication, language, and culture this month.
He will cover issues of interest to Delaware’s LGBTQ community for 12 weeks this summer. The fellowship is named in honor of Steve Elkins, a journalist and co-founder of the CAMP Rehoboth LGBTQ community center. Elkins served as editor of Letters from CAMP Rehoboth for many years as well as executive director of the center before his death in March of 2018.
Kevin Naff, editor of the Blade, welcomed Weaverling and will introduce him to the Rehoboth Beach community at an event this week.
“If the applicants to our fellowship program are any indication, the future of American journalism is very bright,” Naff said. “Thomas stood out for his broad skillset and strong writing and reporting skills and we’re all excited to work with him this summer.”
Weaverling is the ninth recipient of the Elkins fellowship, which is funded by community donations at the Blade Foundation’s annual fundraiser in Rehoboth Beach. This year’s event is scheduled for May 15 at Diego’s and includes a generous sponsorship from Realtor Justin Noble and remarks from Ashley Biden accepting an award on behalf of her brother Beau Biden for his LGBTQ advocacy while serving as Delaware’s attorney general.
“I am incredibly honored and excited to receive the Steve Elkins Memorial Fellowship in Journalism,” Weaverling said. “Writing for the Washington Blade has been a goal of mine since I began my freshman year of college and I could not be more thrilled to have this opportunity. I am looking forward to getting to know the LGBTQ+ community in Rehoboth Beach and throughout Delaware.”
Weaverling is graduating cum laude with a concentration in journalism and Spanish. He studied in Spain in 2025 and worked in the office of Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) as a policy intern.
For more information on the fellowship program or to donate, visit bladefoundation.org.
District of Columbia
GLAA releases ratings for 18 candidates running for D.C. mayor, Council, AG
Mayoral contender Janeese Lewis Geroge among those receiving highest score
D.C. mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George, a Democrat, is among just four candidates to receive the highest rating score of +10 from GLAA D.C. who are competing in the city’s June 16 primary election.
GLAA, formally known as the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, has rated candidates for public office in D.C. since the 1970s. It rated 18 of the 36 candidates on this year’s primary ballot for mayor, D.C. Council, and D.C. attorney general based on its policy of only rating candidates who return a GLAA questionnaire asking for their positions on a wide range of issues, most of which are not LGBTQ-specific.
Among the candidates who did not return the questionnaire and thus did not receive a rating, according to GLAA, was Democratic mayoral contender Kenyan McDuffie, who along with Lewis George, is considered by political observers to be one of the two leading mayoral candidates running in the Democratic primary.
GLAA President Benjamin Brooks said that when the McDuffie campaign learned that GLAA announced it had released its candidate ratings and McDuffie was not rated because a questionnaire from him was not received a McDuffie campaign worker contacted GLAA. Brooks said the campaign worker told him they didn’t initially believe they received the questionnaire but they discovered this week that it landed in the spam folder of the campaign’s email account.
Brooks told the Washington Blade he informed the campaign worker it was too late for GLAA to issue a rating for McDuffie since the submission deadline for all candidates had passed. But he said GLAA will allow McDuffie to submit a completed questionnaire that it will post on its website along with the questionnaire responses of the other candidates who submitted them to GLAA.
McDuffie’s campaign in a statement to the Blade said the GLAA questionnaire “had gone to a spam folder tied to a campaign email address and was never seen by the campaign.”
“Kenyan McDuffie has long been proud of his record of standing with DC’s LGBTQ+ community,” reads the statement. “He has completed the GLAA questionnaire in every election since his first campaign and, in 2022, earned one of the top two ratings among candidates for the two at-large Council seats that election cycle.”
“Kenyan remains committed to fighting for equality, dignity, safety, and opportunity for LGBTQ+ residents across all eight wards, and our campaign welcomes the opportunity to continue engaging with GLAA and the LGBTQ+ community throughout this race,” it continues.
Lewis George and McDuffie, who each have long records of support for the LGBTQ community, are among a total of eight candidates running for mayor on the June 16 primary ballot: seven Democrats and one Statehood Green Party candidate. In addition to Lewis George, GLAA rated just two other mayoral candidates. Rini Sampath, a Democrat who self identifies as queer, received a +6.5 rating, and Ernest E. Johnson, also a Democrat, received a +4.5 rating
Under the GLAA rating system, candidate ratings range from a +10, the highest score, to a -10, the lowest possible score. In its ratings for the June 16 primary, the lowest score issued was +4.5. GLAA said in a statement that each of the 18 candidates it rated expressed strong support for LGBTQ-related issues in their questionnaire responses, indicating that the overall rating scores reflect the candidates’ positions on mostly non-LGBTQ-specific issues.
The three other candidates who received a +10 GLAA rating are each running as Democrats for the Ward 1 D.C. Council seat. They include gay candidate Miguel Trindade Deramo; Aparna Raj, who identifies as bisexual; and LGBTQ ally Rashida Brown. The only other Ward 1 candidate rated by GLAA is LGBTQ ally Terry Lynch, who received a +5.5 rating.
Ward 5 D.C. Councilmember Zachary Parker, the Council’s only gay member who is facing two opponents in the Democratic primary, received a +7 GLAA rating. The two challengers did not return the questionnaire and were not rated.
“In seven out of 10 of our priorities, every candidate indicated agreement,” GLAA said in its statement to the Washington Blade in referring to the candidates it rated. “Total consensus on core issues signals that whomever is elected to Council and mayor, we should expect to hold our elected officials accountable to our goals of protecting home rule, resisting federal overreach, advancing transgender healthcare rights, and eliminating chronic homelessness in the District,” the statement says.
“While candidates agree on the basics, they distinguish themselves in the depth and creativity in their responses, and their record on the issues,” according to the statement, which adds that candidates’ full questionnaire responses and ratings can be accessed on the GLAA website, glaa.org.
Like past election years, GLAA does not rate candidates running for the D.C. Congressional Delegate seat or the so-called “shadow” U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate seats.
With the exception of one question asking about transgender rights, none of the other nine of the 10 questionnaire questions are LGBTQ-specific. But most of the questions mention that LGBTQ people are impacted by the issues being raised, such as affordable housing, federal government intrusion into D.C. home rule, and access to healthcare and public benefits for low-income residents.
One of the questions asks candidates if they support decriminalization of sex work in D.C. among consenting adults, which GLAA supports. Lewis George is among the candidates who said they do not support sex work decriminalization at this time. The other two mayoral candidates that GLAA rated, Sampath and Johnson, said they support sex work decriminalization.
In the race for D.C. attorney general, GLAA issued a rating for just one of the three candidates running: Republican challenger Manuel Rivera, who received a +4.5 rating. Incumbent Democrat Brian Schwalb and Democratic challenger J.P. Szymkowicz were not rated because they didn’t return the questionnaire.
D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D), who is running unopposed in the primary, received a +6.5 rating. Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, who is facing three Democratic challengers in the primary and who is a longtime LGBTQ ally, received a +6.5 rating.
In the special election to fill the at-large D.C. Council seat vacated by the resignation of then-Independent Councilmember McDuffie to enable him to run for mayor as a Democrat, GLAA has rated two of the three Independent candidates competing for the seat. Elissa Silverman received a +5.75 rating, and Doni Crawford received a +6.5 rating.
Finally, in the At-Large D.C. Council race GLAA issued ratings for five of the 11 candidates running in the primary, each of whom are Democrats. Oye Owolewa received a +9; Lisa Raymond, +7.5; Dwight Davis, +6.5; Dyana N.M. Forester, +6; and Fred Hill, +6.6.
The full list of GLAA-rated candidates and their detailed questionnaire responses can be accessed at glaa.org.
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