If there were a gay march organised in your area, would you go on it ??
If your answer would vary depending on what the march was for, then let's say it's campaigining for gay rights to donate blood (which, over here certainly, is still unacceptable).
Just curious ...
!?!?! Shadow !?!?!
![[-]](https://gayspeak.com/images/duende_v3_local/collapse.png)
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Yikes.....
Not for that one I woudn't. We're still, sad to say, a demographic that has unfortunatley high percentages of HIV. Since no blood screening is foolproof yet, and tainted blood still finds it way into the system, I'll err(?) on the side of caution before someone innocently is infected with HIV. As harsh as it seems, no one should pay for poitical correctness with their lives.
BUT, I would march if it was something I believed in strongly enough.
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This is something I obviously appear not to understand ...
... how can you have a blood test to rule out the possibility of your having HIV, but you can't have your blood screened to the same degree when you're giving blood ?
... or is that a silly question ?? :redface:.
Me no understandee ...
!?!?! Shadow !?!?!
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good question .. lots of inequalities in the world
just keep questioning because it's the only way to fix it!
the most recent near me was just a rally
2 gay guys walked into a Burger King and ordered food
got the wrong food
they complained and it started
and they were beaten outside
anyway - it was a while ago ... but the guys that did it just got put in jail
so there is a rally
but I can't make it
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shadow Wrote:This is something I obviously appear not to understand ...
... how can you have a blood test to rule out the possibility of your having HIV, but you can't have your blood screened to the same degree when you're giving blood ?
... or is that a silly question ?? :redface:.
Me no understandee ...
!?!?! Shadow !?!?!
In the usa the rule for donating blood is one same sex partner (males) in 10 years = NO donation. I learned this after 9-11 hit and everyone was calling for blood donations.
I just had an HIV test and it was negative but I dont think they even want my blood now...
and by the way, I do believe all the blood is screened and some have learned they had HIV or HepC after donating.
frank
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It just seems strange when you say, quite rightly, that after massively awful events like 9/11, when people are desperate for blood donors, that we who would willing give blood should be turned away because there's some concern that we might carry some form of infectious disease that could be transmitted in our blood ...
AND, *stands on his soapbox*, sorry to bang on about this, but hasn't it been proven to the satisfaction of the masses that HIV is not a gay disease ? And that EVERYBODY is equally able to carry it ? So how come just because we're gay we're considered an unacceptably high risk ??
Ultimately I really don't care whether I can give blood or not, because I hate needles, so I would only do it for somebody I love, and in an emergency, but it just seems rather hypocritical to me to point the finger at us and say "no no no", when it's really (to a degree) cutting off their noses to spite their faces ...
People can be silly sometimes.
*sits down*
!?!?! Shadow !?!?!
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Rolling up his sleaves.....
It does sound bad, but unfortunatley it does make sense, even though it hurts to hear it. As a group gay en have disproportionaltey high rates of HIV. Just like those living in certain areas of Africa, prostitutes, intravenus drug users.....It's not nice to hear, but those are the facts. As a group, our rates are much higher.
So, there is an incubation period for HIV. We had this discussion on the boards several times. There is a 2-3% rate of infection by blood doning (I think that rate was correct) becasue of tanted blood that gets through even with screening. They do check the blood, but becasue of the delay in incubation, it's not always dected. It doesn't happen a lot, but it does happen.
Since there is no shortage, at the momment, of blood stockpiles, they ask several different risk groups not to donate to protect the possibility of an innocent person contracting HIV through a blood donation.
If a person is absolutely 100% positive that they are not infected, and desperately want to give blood, you can always lie. BUT statistically, 2 out of every 4 men with HIV don't know they are infected. It's hard and feels descriminatory......but on this issue it's about those that are supposed to be helped, not our rights to give. There is no right to give blood.
You know me and know I would be the first to be dukeing it out...but to have even one person (or child?) infected so I /we feel like we are not descrimated against is just wrong. It was crap bad luck that the gay community was hit so hard with HIV, but we were. Even though other groups or demographics are catching up with us in infection rates, as a group we still have much higher percentages than most.
If they don't need the blood, why would they take the risk?
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Don't get me wrong babe, I'm not suggesting that it's something that ought to be changed - just that some people would point at us like we're dangerous, when I would cheerfully seem them forced to acknowledge that they are statistically possibly carriers of the HIV virus as well ...
D'you see what I mean ?
I don't care a fig as I say about not giving blood as it is not something I personally am ever likely to do (and NEVER something I would do willingly) - and I do agree with you that I would rather not be in that situation, than to give blood to save a life but then infect the person I aided with the HIV virus, were I to be a carrier and not realise it ...
... so as with so many things in life, I'm down with the concept - I've no problem with that - mine is a semantic issue with the way in which it's put across.
"You can't give blood because you're gay" is, to my mind, a far cry from the best way of explaining it  mile:.
 .
!?!?! Shadow !?!?!
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I know.....
But that's not quite how it's done. It's how we say it after the fact, but there is a form you have to fill out when you go in that asks several questions and has a list of the groups and so on. It's not like there is a sign on the bus that says No Gays Allowed.....
I know it's galling.... But sometimes you have to suck it up. It's not that we're gay, but that as a group we have larger numbers of HIV.
Off to the gym :-)
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Enjoy babe xx
!?!?! Shadow !?!?!
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