I'm curious, and I know this can also be a country to country or even province to province but how does donating blood work? I know there are some hangups regarding sexuality, but even if there were not, does gender matter for blood? If my blood is full of estrogen, can I donate and it would be reserved for female patients? Does it matter? Just general questions and hoping to bring awareness.
Trans? You Can Keep Your Blood Donation Then | Care2 Causes tldr: Yes, transgender people can be turned away. Generally it's more discriminatory towards trans females then males. As far as I know only blood types have to be compatible gender doesn't matter. (but correct me if I'm wrong) If your blood type is: You can donate to these blood types: TYPE O TYPE O, A, B, AB TYPE A TYPE A, AB TYPE B TYPE B, AB TYPE AB TYPE AB
I donated blood (in Quebec) and I told them I was taking testosterone every two weeks. They didn't turn me away, but they did want to know why I injected myself and with what. Though, being a trans male, I guess they can still turn me away for being gay after I'll have intercourse. It depends, though. I did hear of people being turned away because of the injections (not safe enough, ect.) Anyway, if they won't take perfectly fine blood (assuming that's the only reason they'd turn you away), it's their loss.
I'm not sure, but the goal is to keep a balance between what your system can take -estrogen or T- and the normal levels of a bio female or male, which means you shouldn't have more hormones than them. Like Annie said, what matters is which blood type you have, the Rhesus factor. That's why females can donate to males and viceversa, as long as they are compatible. Also your "lifestyle" will be taken into consideration - If you have unsafe sex, drug use, and so on.
Not really. It is the loss of the people who die because they don't have blood. And it isn't their fault the donor clinic won't take the blood. Anyway. I used to donate regularly. I would like to get back into it. Though until now I never thought that they might not take a transgender's blood. (Though i guess it's not surprising) Of course, I'm not on hormones, so it wouldn't matter yet... But that will probably change in the future.
True, but unfortunately, they have to suffer for those big corporations. My father donates all the time, and I would have done the same if it wasn't for that. When they'll be in a terrible blood shortage, they might reconsider their crazy criteria :/