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Loading ...Lesbians in China petition to donate blood
07.28.2009 8:10am EDT
(Beijing) Lesbians in China have organized an online petition calling for gay people to be allowed to donate blood, state media reported Tuesday.
The petition, asking the government to remove a law enacted in 1998 banning the gay community from donating blood, has drawn 540 signatures from lesbians and aims to reach 1,000, the official China Daily reported.A vast majority of China’s gay and lesbian population face discrimination and stigmatization, and most remain deeply closeted in a highly conservative society. Gay Web sites are often blocked by the government’s Internet firewalls.
China bars potential blood donors from giving blood once they have ticked the gay and lesbian box on the application form, according to a spokeswoman for the Beijing Red Cross Blood Center, who refused to be named citing policy.
“It’s a practical law because the gay community has much higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases. We must take our precautions wisely,” she said. “Even if they lie on the form and say they are straight, everyone’s blood will go through a final screening test for diseases.”
The newspaper report said there are about 30 million gays and lesbians in China, but it did not give numbers on how many of those have HIV/AIDS.
The government and UNAIDS estimate the number of people living with HIV in China is about 700,000, and of those, about 85,000 have AIDS.
The HIV virus that causes AIDS gained a foothold in China largely because of unsanitary blood plasma-buying schemes and tainted transfusions in hospitals.
The government remains sensitive about the disease, regularly cracking down on activists and patients who seek more support and rights.
They are not the only ones being cracked down on.
Those seeking to preserve their cultures and societies like the Tibetans, the Uighurs, the Kazakhs, the Mongolians, etc are up against a national government that does not treasure diversity and is intent on making all of China Han Chinese with no variation from that and noone left not speaking only Mandarin Chinese. No rights for the above minorities to be anything else but imitation Han Chinese.
Wow, China still doesn’t let gays and Lesbians donate blood, they are so behind the times, I mean in the U.S. we’ve been allowing that for… Nevermind.
Aren’t lesbians considered to be the safest community with the lowest recorded incidents of AIDS?
Ok saddley in this case there wrong.
If the number of new cases wasnt growing DAILY! Be a tottly diffrent world. I lost over #20 childhood freinds & adopted family who caught it when it was “gay cancer” here we are in a new generation & theres chatrooms dedicated to EXTREAMLY DANGEROUSE behavior!Barebackin with someone who is positive!
Are young people have fogotten the ravageouse of this pandemic.When all they see is those who the cocktail works for at this time. The damage done by these drugs dont get discused enough not wanting to scare them away from treatment. Just like permissive parents we tolerat to much that is not just reckless but a crime against society,
We need to get real with the younger generation THERE LIVES depend on it! So no to the relaxing of restrictions till the foolish bs stops!Yes being lesbain means not as extream risk but cant afford the backlash of a baby getting sick!Now I know it must be impossable to be a lesbain in china.were a womans only worth is the sons she bares. I just think they are fighting a wrong battle. instead of opening up the posability for further excsape goating & finger pionting. They 1st need get there people & goverment to see woman has having value for simply being themselfs! Untill then the likely hood of any progress is depressing!
well, it’s still a very sensitive topic regarding lgbt.but at least these issues have been brought to the conscious level.