The chair of Windsor Pride Community is elated that Health Canada is ending a restriction on gay men donating blood.
Colm Holmes says they're really excited whenever discriminatory policy is replaced with policy rooted in scientific, evidence-based knowledge.
"It's about a decade of advocacy from the LGBTQ advocates in the community, going to the government and discussing why these policies are not lined up and how they should be executed," he says.
Health Canada has approved a request from Canadian Blood Services to end the policy that restricts men who have sex with men from donating blood for three months.
The move will scrap questions about gender or sexuality, basing screening on higher-risk sexual behaviour such as anal sex instead.
Starting no later than Sept. 30, potential donors will be asked if they have had new or multiple sexual partners in the last three months, no matter their gender or sexual orientation.
Holmes says the previous policy left the LGBTQ community without the ability to donate, which also hurt the greater community.
"It does send a message that we were being discriminated based on our sexual orientation and that isn't a good message for any community to be receiving," he says. "We do look at it also too that the general population was suffering as well because there were less donors in the pool."
Under the new policy, donors will also be asked whether they have had anal sex with any of those partners and if they have, then they will need to wait three months since that activity before donating blood.
The agency says asking about sexual behaviour, rather than sexual orientation, will allow it to more reliably assess the risk of infections such as HIV that can be transmitted through infusions.
Holmes calls this is a milestone toward a more inclusive blood donation system nationwide.
"I do see the LGBTQ community as a very giving community, so I do believe they would increase donations and they would go forward without regards to be eligible to donate now," he adds.
Canada introduced a lifetime ban for gay men in 1992 partly because of H-I-V.
In 2013, it allowed blood to be accepted from a man who abstained from sex with another man for at least five years.
The waiting period then dropped to one year, and became three months in 2019.
Windsor Pride Community is a charitable organization aiming to create a culture of belonging for Windsor-Essex’s LGBTQ people and their families, allies, employers and educators through education, empowerment and support programs and services.