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new blood donation policy announced in the U.K. today. despite the ostensible “progress” (which no doubt will be how this is reported on again and again today), there is much about the new rules that is concerning.
namely, while, as expected, monogamous gay and bi men are to be able to give blood, other practices are being newly and often confusingly labelled “high risk”: PrEP and PEP use, anal sex regardless of gender, and chemsex.
as well as drawing the obvious distinction between “good gays” and “bad gays”, i am troubled by the effects of labelling PrEP use “high risk” when PrEP is known to be highly effective in preventing sexual transmission of HIV.
further still, the creation of a new class of high risk category “chemsex” is troubling because of a worrying and highly public conflation between chemsex - which refers to a very very broad range of events and practices - and HIV risk.
the point is that securing the donation of monogamous gay and bi men seems a Pyrrhic victory when the effect is the very public demarcation of these other practices to be “high risk” (at odds with the efforts of grassroots and HIV sector actors)
this is all not to mention the predictable neglect of sex workers, migrant populations or people who have been sexually active in high risk countries, and people who have ever injected drugs in the new policy announcements. little to celebrate.
