The FDP wants to abolish the blood donation ban for gay and transgender

The FDP-group will be tabling a motion in the Bundestag to abolish the blood donation ban for gay and transgender people. A blanket exclusion of Gays and TRANS-gender people is an untenable discrimination in the absence of medical necessity and escalating, and the lack of life-saving blood donations, it says in the motion that is before the MIRROR.

Previously, persons with so-called sexual risk may behavior only under certain conditions, to donate blood: if you had a year of no Sex. In November 2017, the Federal chamber of physicians loosened the policy for Blood collection and for application of blood products something. Since then, it says, people with sexual risk behavior, which, according to the Directive, men who have Sex with men, and transgender people, will be excluded for twelve months from the donation. According to the Directive, male and female sex workers and heterosexual persons with frequently changing sex partners are affected by the scheme.


The FDP adheres to its own information, in the formulation of their application to the information on “Inter – and TRANS-sexuality” of the Federal Ministry for family Affairs, senior citizens, women and youth (BMFSFJ). Accordingly, the term “TRANS-gender” as a generic term for all forms of gender identity – that is, the perceived gender of a human being. In the “Directive Haemotherapy and transfusion medicine” of the German medical Association men who have sex with men are explicitly “,” and “transsexual persons with sexual risk-taking” listed behavior.


Before the Amendment, these groups of people were barred for life from donating blood. The reason given was that they had compared to the General population at increased risk of HIV or Hepatitis-C-Virus to infect. The details of the Lifestyle are collected by questionnaire.

  • Read here an Essay on the topic of our authors Enrico Ippolito: my blood Is toxic?

A year no Sex? This is not true to life

“The adaptation of the Directive to a waiting period of twelve months since the last sexual intercourse up to the time of blood donation is a way of life foreign adoption”, – stated in the FDP application, introduced by Mr Jens Brandenburg, Katja Suding and of the FDP parliamentary group. “The key to a risk of infection, sexual or gender identity of a person is not, but the actual risk behavior, for example, through unprotected sexual intercourse with frequently changing partners.”

Both Prostitution as well as changing sexual partners would be queried in the “Directive Haemotherapy” anyway separately. An explicit designation of homosexual and TRANS-gender persons as a risk group is an unjustified generalization, and discriminate. “The groups of people as a Whole is a non-reflective and high-risk sexual behaviour”, write the FDP members of Parliament. Unquestionably was, that the medical safety of the blood I donate is of the highest priority.

“We cannot afford to donate ready-to exclude people lump because of their gender or sexual identity of the blood donation,” said the Deputy Federal party Chairman, Katja Suding, the MIRROR. “Instead, the best test procedures have to be applied, the us the medical advances already available. This is our ethical duty.”

In Germany, about 14,000 blood donations per day are needed. According to the Red cross, about 80 percent of the German citizens need once in the life of a blood donation. The demand for life-saving donations of blood was very high, but the position of the supply will, to an ever greater challenge, the application of the FDP.

“Blood in the hospitals are scarce, people’s lives are at stake,” said Suding. Only two to three percent of the German donated blood regularly.

Due to the demographic change, the number of blood donations decline, also, in the future, because the upper age limit for blood donations is at 68 years for repeat donors. At the same time, the demand is increasing due to the growing proportion of the elderly population. In 2015, the European court of justice (ECJ) stated for General blood donation bans as inadmissible, as long as the protection of the health of blood donation recipients.