Last Ban on Gay, Bi Blood Donors Falls in U.K.

Northern Ireland will end the permanent ban on male donors who've had sex with men.

Neal Broverman

Neal Broverman is the Editorial Director, Print of Pride Media, publishers of The Advocate, Out, Out Traveler, and Plus, spending more than 20 years in journalism. He indulges his interest in transportation and urban planning with regular contributions to Los Angeles magazine, and his work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times and USA Today. He lives in the City of Angels with his husband, children, and their chiweenie.

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Neal Broverman

June 04 2016 8:01 PM EST

May 26 2023 2:12 PM EST

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Nearly five years after England, Scotland, and Wales lifted their lifetime ban on gay and bisexual men donating blood, the British region of Northern Ireland has followed suit.

The new policy ditches the lifetime ban on gay and bi men in exchange for a "deferral" system, which permits blood donations from men who haven't had gay sex in a year or longer. The new policy, now in line with the rest of the United Kingdom, takes effect September 1, the BBC reports. Some British leaders want to scrap the entire deferral system for gay and bi men.

Like many Western municipalities, Northern Ireland banned blood donations from men in the early 1980s as the AIDS crisis was exploding.

The United States ended their 32-year-old ban on gay and bi men donating blood in December, but maintain a similar one-year abstinence requirement like the U.K. The Food and Drug Administration's policy on transgender donors remains backwards, with transgender women still grouped with gay men.