LGBTQIA+
In 2023, the Food and Drug Administration released updated guidance that recommends the adoption of individual donor assessment (IDA) to determine blood donor eligibility.
Individual donor assessments mean more people can safely share the gift of life through blood donation.
Are gay and bisexual men now eligible to donate blood?
Under the FDA’s individual donor assessment guidance, there are no eligibility criteria related to men who have sex with men. Any individual, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, who has had new or multiple sexual partners in the last three months, and also had anal sex in that timeframe, will be asked to wait three months to donate blood from last anal sex contact. Individuals who have had anal sex in the last three months may be eligible to donate as long as they did not have sex with someone new or with multiple partners during that timeframe.
How do you define a new sexual partner?
A new sexual partner includes someone you have sex with for the first time, or someone you had sex with in the past and then stopped but had sex with that person again in the last three months.
I am transgender, gender non-binary, gender non-conforming, genderqueer, gender fluid, or agender. Can I donate?
There are no donor eligibility criteria related to being transgender, non-binary, or gender non-confirming. LifeServe values all potential blood donors and understands that selecting either male or female may not align with how some individuals identify. LifeServe also knows that there is a difference between biological sex and gender. Under the FDA’s individual donor assessment guidance, the donor history questionnaire is gender-neutral and all donors will answer the same questions regardless of gender. However, there are still eligibility criteria – such as height to weight ratio for certain donation types and iron levels – which require individuals to select either male or female on the donor history questionnaire. Because of this, we need to know the biological sex assigned at birth. We hope that future updates to our system will allow for us to track biological sex assigned at birth in addition to multiple gender options.
Can I donate if I take medications to prevent or treat an HIV infection (PrEP/PEP/ART)?
If you have taken a drug to prevent an HIV infection, known as pre-exposure prophylaxis and post-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP or PEP), you are asked to wait three months from last oral dose and two years from last injection to donate blood. The waiting period is required due to these drugs interfering with viral replication and thus possibly altering the detectability of diagnostic and screening tests for HIV, including extending the window period prior to detectable infection or a delay in producing antibodies. If you have ever taken a drug to treat an HIV infection, known as antiretroviral therapy or ART, you are deferred from blood donation permanently since antiretroviral drugs do not fully eliminate the virus from the body, and donated blood can potentially still transmit HIV infection to a transfusion recipient.