Identifying as female to sell blood

[TurfClub]

This is a complaint by 'Nicole Throckmorton aka Nicholas Throckmorton'.

outinsa.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/2018.09.19-Throckmorton-Nicole-FS-Corr-to-Alex-Lopez.pdf

Under US rules MEN (and only men) who have had sex with men in the last 12 months are not allowed to sell blood (no giving there, lol).

However under US, Obama-era (2015), FDA rules your gender identity is self-identified and not subject to question.

So if you have received anal sex every night in the last year with a different bloke off Grindr, but you want to sell blood then you can do so, providing you say you are a woman.

Again it doesn't matter if you ARE a woman, because self-id. In fact 'woman' is literally a meaningless term.

The risky behaviour is receptive anal sex, which has a transmission rate 100x higher than say, vaginal sex, with the result that MSM have a 50% chance of getting HIV in the US.

But if you identify as a woman then that identical behaviour is no longer risky.

So the FDA is happy to give everyone HIV at the altar of self-ID.

Hallelujah!

There is nothing we can't sacrifice to self-ID.

Don't they test the blood anyway?

They do. No test is 100% accurate though. And there are no tests for the possible immunological markers because we don’t yet know what we’d be testing for.

It’s grossly irresponsible to lie like this - it’s also creating a higher chance of everyone in the handling chain being exposed, from whoever takes the blood draw, to those in the lab. Of course everyone wears PPE but I’ve worked many years in labs and people are fallible - accidents happen. I’ve slipped with syringes more than once (hand full of a chemo drug which probably wasn't terribly good for me, and I’ve had things sprayed in my face as well.)

People’s desire for validation cannot ever override patient safety and HCP/lab safety.

I Imagine Some Gender Critical Radfem , having a blood transfusion, and insisting it was 100% real XX female blood !

There are real biological safety issues here. Both ways actually. Imagine a woman who had been pregnant and had rhesus antibodies...

This goes beyond people’s politics and opinions - it’s a biohazard. There could also be legal implications as I guess you could argue the person collecting the info/processing and supplying blood products has a legal duty of care to provide the safest product possible.

Previous scandals like CJD (contracted from administration of human derived growth hormone) and the contaminated blood for haemophiliacs scandal should inform us here. There are rules and the rules are nothing to do with feminism - they’re solid science.

Playing devils advocate , I am sure the factor 8 scandal , infected with HIV probably originated from male prisoners selling their infected XY blood

but we will have to wait 50 years to find out

we have just been discussion this at one of our dinner partys , now we have all moved into the lounge (and are all a bit drunk )

One of our dinner guests a Surgeon, asks ?

if you are Anti everything Trans , and needed a Heart, Kidney transplant /Blood Transfusion , following the logic you presumably would refuse the donor organ if it originated from a Trans person ?

to save your life or the life of a family member , following your GC logic , it would be a bit hypocritical if you were to accept that gift of life surely ?

if you are Anti everything Trans

No one is. Nobody is saying ‘oh yucky trans organ. Got nits!’ Nobody is saying they wouldn’t accept an organ, nobody is saying trans people cannot donate, whether it’s organs, tissue or blood products.,

They are saying that accurate recording of medical data is important. That someone who lies to circumvent the rules on blood product donation from high risk groups is not acting in good faith.

I’m surprised a surgeon thinks such a thing is ok, you haven’t... slightly misrepresented the argument there have you ..?

Ask which eGRF reference ranges they’d apply to a transman presenting with stage three CKD? Do feelz trump biological reality?

if you are Anti everything Trans

Which none of us are, so your question makes no sense.

The problem under discussion here is the misrecording of donor sex, which could have health implications for the recipient. Also, a transman who gives their sex as "male" (incorrectly) could be permitted to donate every twelve weeks when the minimum safe donation interval for female people is sixteen weeks. This could endanger the transman.

As bowl said, People’s desire for validation cannot ever override patient safety and HCP/lab safety. and it also shouldn't override donor safety. Prioritising safety over validation of feelings isn't anti-trans, it's pro-health, including the health of the trans people you accuse us of hating.

The question on blood products is ‘is it ok for someone from a high risk group to lie in order to circumvent the rules on donations from that group to sell blood products?’

It would apply to anyone who is a man who has sexual with men, certain people who have received transfusions in the past, certain drug users and sex workers, people with known HIV or other blood bourne diseases etc,

It’s not ‘oh yucky trans.’ It’s about patient safety. Is a woman with hep C who is about it to sell plasma acting morally?

if you are Anti everything Trans , and needed a Heart, Kidney transplant /Blood Transfusion , following the logic you presumably would refuse the donor organ if it originated from a Trans person ?

to save your life or the life of a family member , following your GC logic , it would be a bit hypocritical if you were to accept that gift of life surely ?

No one here is "anti trans". The point is that biology exists and has real ramifications when it come to medical procedures. For example, the trans person donating organs in your situation - would the medical staff record the organs as being from the gender the person identifies as or their actual biological sex? Pretty sure they try to have a sex match where possible

What an ignorant question for a surgeon to ask.

The question is not "would you accept a yukky trans blood / organ donation you hypocrite?".

It's "is the accurate recording of donors' sex of importance for safety of all concerned?"

And if the answer is "yes, it is important" the next question on the flow chart is "what is more important to you; a) medical safety and ethics or b) trans validation?"

You would have to be positively psychotic to answer b.

You have strange drunk dinner parties if the bit where you move into the living room is where you start reading threads like this and then post on MN.

And a surgeon asking that question... Pull the other one.

Maybe he identifies as a surgeon but is actually a brickie, or a banker.

Could be a tree surgeon?

Still reading, but reallybadidea did you spot that a transwoman (or any man) who has had sex with with transwomen would be required to tick "had no sex with men at all" Even though that is in reality anal sex between two men.

The whole thing is confusing to talk about without getting lost in the newly blurred terms

What an ignorant question for a surgeon to ask.

Well, Foxy did say they were all drunk. Which is the only reason I can think of for such a gross misunderstanding of what was being said here from a medical professional.

And besides, the sex of the donor actually has an impact on rejection rates in the recipient. Depends which organ which donor sex means a higher rejection rate in the recipient. IIRC, heart donating goes one way and kidney the other.

You'd think a surgeon might be aware of that.

(Sorry... sex of the donor in transplant surgeries.)

Two possibilities here.

1. They've now worked out that men having had sex with men isn't actually the risk factor they thought it was, in which case we can expect an announcement that the restrictions on gay men giving blood have been lifted and an apology for suggesting that they shouldn't before any day now, right?

1. They still believe blood from men who have sex with men to be dangerous, but have decided that a few patients contracting HIV as the result of a transfusion is less of a concern that pissing off shouty people on Twitter would be. Which is both cowardly and a complete abdication of their responsibility to patients.

UK goes by self-ID as well.

Quotes from a response to a 2015 FOI request to NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT):

Donors who identify themselves as male will be assessed using the male haemoglobin levels and similarly donors identifying as female must have sufficiently high haemaglobin levels to meet the female levels.

A man who has had his gender reassigned as a woman who, as a man, had not had high risk sexual activity, can be accepted if, as a woman, they have a sexual relationship with a man

Male sexual partners of transgender women would not fall under the men who have sex with men deferral policy in their assessment.

Male sexual partners of transgender men can not donate for 12 months as per the men who have sex with men deferral guidance.

If a donor states that they are a woman we accept that and do not enquire about their birth gender.

If a donor states that they are a man we accept that and do not enquire about their birth gender.

Back in July 2017 when the government launched the LGBT survey and first announced plans to reform the GRA they also announced this (in the same press release!):

The Government has also announced that the deferral blood donation period for men who have sex with men, will be reduced from 12 months to three months increasing the supply of donor blood available for life-saving operations.

I'm no expert. I have no idea whether the MSM deferral period should be 12 months, 3 months or is completely unneccessary, but the lack of joined up thinking here is hurting my brain.

I'm pretty sure that lipstick and dresses don't act as effective barriers to HIV transmission, so that policy is clearly utter nonsense.

I can't give blood because I had a blood transfusion years ago before blood was tested for anything. The reason is that I may have variant CJD due to this, and for which there is no test (am symptom-free so far). Do I get in a paddy or pretend to the blood transfusion service that I've never had a transfusion because my feelings are hurt by this apparent rejection? No I damn well don't, because I know and accept the basis on which this rejection is based and IT MAKES SENSE. The world is not about me, me, me.

Precisely. I wouldn't be allowed to give blood in the US either, on account of being in the UK during mad cow issues. That's a policy that pretty much bans the majority of Brits over a certain age, and I've yet to hear about expat Brits kicking up a fuss about it.

The transmen donating every twelve weeks and it being unsafe is a bit of a red herring — I donate at roughly that frequency because in Scotland it's twelve weeks for both sexes.

I don't understand the organ donor question — it would make no difference to me, but it should be recorded with the sex (with potentially a note that it's been exposed to cross-sex hormones a/b/c for x years), because there are implications for how well it's accepted by my body and whether it is in fact a suitable match for that reason.

I suspect that's because foxyliz's surgeon friend is, like her legal qualifications, a figment of her imagination

Imagine a woman who had been pregnant and had rhesus antibodies...

If she's donating blood then it would be picked up in the screening and processed according to the antibody level (I'm assuming you mean Rh D when you say 'rhesus antibodies'), if she'd been injected with anti-D for the pregnancy she'd be ineligible in any case.

If she's receiving blood and the transfused unit(s) are Rh D+ then there's been a serious failing in either the authority responsible for processing transfusions or the laboratory that approved the cross match, MSM donations or not.

Am I dreaming? Is this just a nightmare? Have we really got to the point where infection of patients is of less importance than someone's 'feelz'? Who is brainwashing these organisations?

Yes it’d get picked up - what I mean is that some groups of people are ineligible for all sorts of reasons and some of those reasons have serious outcomes. Some theoretical. But the first step - the exclusion, is important

I’ve also worked with clinical labs/commercial labs and there is an error rate.

Disasters happen when the loopholes align. Lying about eligibility + being a carrier of a disease + lab error or labelling error (and it does happen) = something slips through.

Lying about eligibility + being a carrier of a disease + lab error or labelling error (and it does happen) = something slips through.

I wasn't defending that. People whose lifestyles places them at increased risk of disease or who are knowingly carriers of blood borne diseases should not be lying to donate. There is a particular risk with certain viruses that they may be infectious below detectable levels. I was correcting what seemed like a purported risk associated with a donor who does not have the aforementioned risk factors (i.e. Rh group antibodies resulting from pregnancy).

If the blood supplying agency cannot reliably type and the laboratory cannot reliably crossmatch based on Rh antigens/antibodies then that really has nothing to do with the sex or gender of the donating individual. Furthermore, errors of that nature in any appreciable number would represent a critical (potentially criminal) level of negligence.

In short, there are risks but let's stick to the facts.