Giving Blood???

[Guest Tammy Maher]

Hey everyone I was at SD-CCI today and gave blood first thing and wondered. How would I answer some of the gender/sex specific questions on the flyer.

(I'm MtF and say after surgery I go hang with a guy for a night... so IE: "Have you had sexual contact with another guy? (even once)" Because although I would be a girl/woman I am DNA biologically a guy.)

So has anyone given blood and how do you answer such questions?

[Guest April63]

Never given blood, and I don't know what the questions are.

But perhaps, just answer truthfully? Have I had sexual contact with a man? Nope.

[Sally]

April is right, answer honestly.

The answers aren't used to track you but to determine the safety of the blood being donated - they will run tests but some of the questions send up red flags that make them not take it in the first place, like my dad having had malaria - it lingers in the blood forever.

Love ya,

Sally

[Guest Tammy Maher]

I got that. But even though it wouldn't really "guy on guy" My blood is biologically male. So I'm looking for guidence on how to answer the specific ?s [and somehow i managed to post this off my PSP. LOL!]

[Guest CharliTo]

Hm, I usually wonder these kinda things for anything medical related too... but generally, I have put a note that I am transgendered before too... Medically, it's best they know I think...

[Guest My_Genesis]

I dunno if they test your actual DNA, sex chromosomes and such. But I always wondered if donating blood is gender specific or not...considering males and females have slightly different contents of different amounts in their blood (hormones being the obvious example of this - another being iron levels) ..and if being trans would signify something somewhere in the donation process, even if you're pre-transition... like if you have high E or T levels, for instance.

[Guest Leah1026]

I got that. But even though it wouldn't really "guy on guy" My blood is biologically male.

As a medical worker I can tell you blood does NOT have a sex. Blood is blood, it is NOT typed by sex.

You are NOT a guy or even a former guy. You are a transsexual woman.

That's the truth, that's being honest.

Also, the honest truth is the FDA doesn't want transsexual people donating blood. They think we're all needle sharing drug addicts and sex workers (can you say stereotype?). And no I'm not making this up. The FDA is decades behind the times as far as blood donor eligibility.

[Guest My_Genesis]

As a medical worker I can tell you blood does NOT have a sex. Blood is blood, it is NOT typed by sex.

You are NOT a guy or even a former guy. You are a transsexual woman.

That's the truth, that's being honest.

Also, the honest truth is the FDA doesn't want transsexual people donating blood. They think we're all needle sharing drug addicts and sex workers (can you say stereotype?). And no I'm not making this up. The FDA is decades behind the times as far as blood donor eligibility.

Oh man don't get me started on the FDA

Fundamentally, blood isn't really sexually dimorphic... but then again it can be.... I don't know if stuff like males having slightly higher iron levels than females mean anything when donating blood (it's not like there isn't overlap, most of the numbers stay in the same general range of "normal.") That's what I've always been curious about. And also about sex hormone levels, if a bio-male were to give blood and it ended up in a bio-female, doesn't that blood have higher T levels than the rest of the recipient's blood would?

I dunno much about this, just speculating.

[Guest April63]

Blood doesn't really have gender. Sort of, but it's not significant enough to have an effect.

There isn't enough testosterone or estrogen in the blood to cause any issues. Male blood is given to females all the time and vice-versa. All of the blood in your body isn't being replaced; only a small portion is. This doesn't cause much of a problem. Your hormone levels may be a little weird for a day or two after receiving blood, but no problems should occur.

The DNA is different as it will have different sex chromosomes, but that won't cause a problem either.

[Guest Leah1026]

As a medical worker I can tell you blood does NOT have a sex. Blood is blood, it is NOT typed by sex.

You are NOT a guy or even a former guy. You are a transsexual woman.

That's the truth, that's being honest.

Also, the honest truth is the FDA doesn't want transsexual people donating blood. They think we're all needle sharing drug addicts and sex workers (can you say stereotype?). And no I'm not making this up. The FDA is decades behind the times as far as blood donor eligibility.

I wrote that when I was exhausted yesterday. I'm not sure if it's the FDA, CDC or somebody else, but the policy is just stupid.

That said, I can't donate for multiple reasons:

1. I'm a healthcare worker and I am exposed to everything under the sun.

2. Like many transsexual women I take Propecia (aka Finasteride, Finpecia). Anyone who takes Propecia or Avodart (aka Dutasteride, Dutas) should not give blood as both drugs can cause birth defects.

[Guest Martin]

FTMs who take testosterone CAN donate blood, even though testosterone is obviously not a medication pregnant women should be taking.

As for your questions, I'll try to answer it in a way that's appropriate. We'll see if I succeed. The reason they care about whether someone is a guy who's had sex with guys is because they're assuming that means penis-in-rectum penetration, even though men can have sex in various ways and even though women can be penetrated there and so on. That type of sex is the type of sex that's most likely to spread HIV if one of the partners actually has it. THAT's what they really care about. They want to know if you have one of the risk factors for HIV because the testing for that virus isn't perfect (though it's very, very good). So, reword the question to "Have you had penis-in-rectum sex?" and then answer it honestly.

If the answer is yes, you might as well not go because they'll permanently ban you from donating blood anyway. Even if it was just once, years ago, with protection with a non-infected partner and you've had several negative HIV tests since and even though they retest the blood. That's not entirely logical, but that's the way the current guidelines are.

[Guest My_Genesis]

FTMs who take testosterone CAN donate blood, even though testosterone is obviously not a medication pregnant women should be taking.

As for your questions, I'll try to answer it in a way that's appropriate. We'll see if I succeed. The reason they care about whether someone is a guy who's had sex with guys is because they're assuming that means penis-in-rectum penetration, even though men can have sex in various ways and even though women can be penetrated there and so on. That type of sex is the type of sex that's most likely to spread HIV if one of the partners actually has it. THAT's what they really care about. They want to know if you have one of the risk factors for HIV because the testing for that virus isn't perfect (though it's very, very good). So, reword the question to "Have you had penis-in-rectum sex?" and then answer it honestly.

If the answer is yes, you might as well not go because they'll permanently ban you from donating blood anyway. Even if it was just once, years ago, with protection with a non-infected partner and you've had several negative HIV tests since and even though they retest the blood. That's not entirely logical, but that's the way the current guidelines are.

Doesn't such regulation basically ban most of the homosexual male population from donating blood?

I mean to a point it's reasonable to be cleared of HIV+ blood in the donation supply but cmon...

And I was concerned because when I went to donate they told me my red count was a bit low and to eat more red meat and come back a few weeks later..