Thailand which has typically been progressive and culturally tolerant to their large transsexual minority, and even somewhat understanding of their homosexual citizens has backtracked today on sexual minority rights.
The Thailand Red Cross has announced that it will no longer accept blood from men who have sex with men, citing the high levels of HIV/AIDS in the gay community.
All blood should be tested regardless of what a person does or says, and to single out a whole group of people based on a statistic is wrong. The fact is millions of heterosexuals have HIV, no other racial, religious, or community based group would dare be singled out for fear of the organization being labeled insensitive and discriminatory.
Please contact the Thailand Red Cross to let them know that gay blood saves lives and to renege on this new policy, tell them testing is very effective today and there are other measures to try and scan out those with possible disease. Questions such as "do you engage with multiple sexual partners?", or "have you had unprotected sex within the last 6 months?", " have you used needles for drug exchange" are all proper ways to identify high risk groups without singling out based on sexual orientation.
National Blood Center:
Email: blood@redcross.or.th
Phone: 0-2252-4106-9
1871 Henry Dunant Road
Patumwan, Bangkok 10330
Thai Red Cross Administration:
1871 4th floor
Terdprakiat Building
Rama IV Road, Patumwan
Bangkok 10330
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Tell Thai Red Cross New Gay Blood Ban is Wrong and that "Gay Blood Saves Lives"
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3 comments:
Someone ought to tell the Red Cross in the USA that as well. The Red Cross in Los Angeles will not accept donations of blood from gay men.
Actually it's the Red Cross in the entire United States. They have a blanket policy against accepting any homosexual male blood. It's nice how rational thought changes with less homophobic attitudes, isn't it?
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