Gay Organs Rejected

Also in the Calgary Herald Q

Health Canada recently created regulations which will ban any gay man who has been sexually active in the previous five years from donating organs. This was done because gay men are considered to be members of a “high risk” group. According to Egale Canada, “the rejections are based solely on sexual orientation rather than on unsafe sexual practice. Health Canada is essentially telling Canadians that unprotected sex is safe as long as you aren't a gay man.”

So under these new regulations, it appears that it would be perfectly acceptable for, say, Paris Hilton to donate her organs, but Sir Ian McKellen would be refused. Because Paris Hilton’s sexual activity is not high risk at all.



As it turns out, statistically the fastest growing HIV demographic in Canada is young, heterosexual women, who make up over a quarter of all HIV infections. So why are gay men being singled out? Is Health Canada not reading its own press?

I’m also wondering how the organizations are going to know which organs belong to a gay man? Are the organs going to be waving rainbow flags? Are they going to have a keen sense of style and know how to accessorize? Maybe they’ll be wearing assless chaps? How is anyone even going to know that the organ is “gay?” Well, apparently, transplant organizations will conduct thorough and—I’m sure—scientifically-supported interviews of family members with a series of questions pertaining to travel, infectious disease, drug use and, yes, sexual orientation. I know personally, that my parents are the best sources of information in regards to my sex life, so really how could this interview process be anything but fool proof?

This makes me think of the tainted blood scandal of the late nineties. Back in 1998, my blood was rejected and my donor card cut up because I lived in France for more than six months in 1991, where there was believed to be a few isolated cases of Mad Cow Disease. And I haven’t donated blood since. They lost a perfectly good, regular donor over a policy that eliminated everyone, rather than using a blood test to eliminate BSE. So now I worry that the same will be true for organ donation. Wouldn’t a simple blood test rule out HIV? Testing an organ at the end, rather than rejecting it at the beginning seems much more logical to me.

Allow me to be clear: I do believe that it is important to have strict procedures in place for organ and blood donation. I understand that it was essential in 1998 for Canadian Blood Services to redeem blood donation and transfusion in the eyes of Canadians in order to make us feel safe. Health Canada should absolutely be making sure to stop unsafe organ transplants, but they should not be isolating one demographic or rejecting healthy, potentially viable organs. And doesn’t it seem more reasonable to concentrate on high-risk behaviours, rather than so-called high-risk groups? And if they are going to concentrate on high-risk groups, then for goodness sake, focus on the right ones.

It is sad that open discrimination by our own government is still happening. To me, it would be the equivalent of saying that the organs of all Asians or Blacks need to be rejected. Sometimes I feel like homophobia is the last socially accepted form of discrimination. It’s 2008. Isn’t it time that gays stopped having to deal with discrimination, hatred and rejection? Isn’t it time to bury the hatchet?

Maybe all the rejected gay organs are going to make the most of it by running off to New York and starring in an off-Broadway musical of "Homorgans: The Rejected Kidney Story." I hear Liza Minnelli is interested in a part.