19/06/2025
The long standing LGBTQIA Newspaper in Sydney reports that the organisation that controls stocks of blood and blood plasma donations in Australia, has announced changes to rules around donation. The paper reports "
After many years of campaigning, the ban on blood donation from sexually active gay and Bi+ men, trans women and other AMAB gender-diverse people, in Australia are set to change. Lifeblood, formerly Red Cross Australia, have listened to scientific evidence that HIV is no longer the transmissable disease it once was. "From July 14 this year they will lift the sexual activity rule — this prohibited gay and bisexual men and transgender women from being able to donate plasma if they had been sexually active with men in the last three months.
LGBTQIA+ advocacy groups have been campaigning for the removal of the ban for many years, as it stigmatises HIV-positive people and the LGBTQIA+ community as a whole. Public support for the ban had long since evaporated." Dr Jo Pink, the Chief Medical Officer of Lifeblood praised the move citing the potential for thousands more donations to be received in the future.
“We now anticipate an extra 24,000 donors and 95,000 extra donations of plasma to be made each year.”
