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GayCityNews.com | April 7 - April 20, 2022
BY MATT TRACY
Since taking office last year,
Bronx Congressmember
Ritchie Torres has often
wielded the power and visibility
of the national stage to mount
pressure on the federal government
to nix the discriminatory policy barring
men who have sex with men from
donating blood. He has written letters
to the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) urging the agency to eliminate
the policy, held press conferences with
Congressional colleagues and LGBTQ
advocates, and joined other members
of Congress in introducing a resolution
calling for the United States to implement
blood donation policies based on
science rather than discrimination.
Torres brought that fight directly to
the White House on April 1 when he
and several other co-chairs of the Congressional
LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus
met with President Joe Biden to discuss
queer issues, including the blood
ban, LGBTQ affordable housing, and
the Equality Act.
“I made the case to the president
that the FDA’s policy is a relic of the
past, it’s a relic of the 1980s, and it’s
relic of a time when we had more homophobia
than we do now,” Torres told
Gay City News in a phone interview.
The 34-year-old Bronx congressmember
met with Biden alongside
four other out LGBTQ representatives
— David Cicilline of Rhode Island,
Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, and Mondaire
Jones and Sean Patrick Maloney
of New York. It was the first meeting
between the Congressional LGBTQ+
Equality and a president since the
caucus was created in 2008.
Describing the meeting as “a historic
moment,” Torres conveyed how far the
country has progressed since President
Dwight Eisenhower issued an executive
order declaring the LGBTQ community
a threat to national security.
And yet, there is much more progress
needed — including in the campaign
to lift the remnants of a blood
donation policy that was first implemented
in 1983 when the FDA, fearing
HIV/AIDS, imposed a lifetime ban on
men having sex with men from donating
blood. The scope of the policy was
reduced in 2015 to a 12-month deferral
period, and then to a three-month
deferral period beginning in April of
2020.
Torres and many others across the
community, however, are quick to acknowledge
that the changes have been
insufficient because the policy still
amounts to a ban for sexually active
people.
“It makes no difference,” Torres said.
“It is unreasonable to expect anyone,
straight or gay, to defer sex for months
in order to contribute blood.”
The issue, after all, is personal to
him. Torres was the first New York City
councilmember to be diagnosed with
COVID-19 early on in the pandemic,
but the FDA’s policy barred him from
donating blood.
“Even though I was one of the few
providers of antibodies in March of
2020, I could not donate blood because
of my sexual orientation and I could
not donate blood to save lives during a
national emergency — during a severe
blood shortage,” he said.
Torres was diagnosed with COVID
when he was in the midst of a contentious
and crowded 2020 Democratic
primary campaign to replace
Representative José M. Serrano in
the southern and western part of the
Bronx. Torres won the race in historic
fashion, becoming the first out LGBTQ
Afro-Latinx member of Congress, and
he rose to Capitol Hill with a slate of
priorities — including the blood ban.
In 2020, the FDA announced it was
funding a pilot study — dubbed the
ADVANCE study — that could provide
evidence to show that men who have
sex with men could just complete a
typical donor history questionnaire to
qualify as a blood donor. Torres is hoping
the study will produce results “by
the end of the year and no later than
the end of the year.”
During his meeting with the president,
Torres said Biden indicated that
he would wait until that study is completed
before taking further action.
“Even though the president was
sympathetic to my message, he was
also deferential to the process of the
FDA and he is loath to intervene,” Torres
said.
In the meantime, Torres said, “We
just want to keep up pressure on the
White House and the FDA. The FDA’s
discrimination against the LGBTQ
community… is no longer acceptable.”
A spokesperson for the FDA told
Gay City News there are no updates
regarding the study or the policy, but
left the door open to changes in the
future.
“The scientific information that is
needed to further change blood donor
policies does take time and effort...
We do not have a specific timeline for
when these studies may be completed,
but remain committed to gathering
the scientific data that can support
alternative donor deferral policies that
maintain a high level of blood safety,”
the spokesperson said.
Among other topics, Torres said he
pressed the president on housing for
vulnerable LGBTQ individuals — an
issue he has been working on since he
served as the chair of the City Council’s
Committee on Public Housing.
“I impressed upon the president
to invest in affordable housing specifically
oriented towards the LGBTQ
community,” Torres said. “If you’re a
young LGBTQ person and you’re evicted
from your home by your own parents,
you are much more vulnerable to
substance abuse, commercial sexual
exploitation, and the criminal justice
system. It is no accident that LGBTQ
youth have the highest rates of homelessness
and highest rates of suicide.
Health and housing are inexplicably
bound together.”
The other out LGBTQ lawmakers at
the meeting reminded the president
of the urgent need to pass the longstalled
Equality Act in the Senate, according
to a press release distributed
by Cicilline’s office. Cicilline said the
lawmakers had a “productive conversation”
with the president.
“I am grateful to President Biden for
inviting Equality Caucus leadership
to meet with him at the White House
today,” Cicilline said in a written statement.
“President Biden has been the
most vocal ally to the LGBTQ+ community
we have ever had in the White
House, and I thanked him for his unwavering
support.”
Jones was unable to be reached for
this story due to a scheduling conflict
and Maloney did not return phone
messages seeking comment.
REUTERS/Al Dra go
Congressmember Ritchie Torres of the Bronx is calling for an end to the ban on gay men from donating blood.
POLITICS
In Historic Meeting, Torres Tells Biden to End Blood Ban
Out gay Bronx lawmaker joins other LGBTQ congressmembers at the White House
/GayCityNews.com
