Under the new guidelines, men in monogamous same-gender relationships can now donate without having to be celibate for three months. This change is another significant policy advance – one that many advocates, including Mazzoni Center, have been seeking for years. It is particularly encouraging that the new guidelines recommend one set of screening procedures for all potential donors regardless of sexual orientation, sex, or gender. This finally drops the decades-old unscientific practice of stigmatizing gay and bisexual men based on identity. Under the new guidelines, all potential donors will be screened with a new questionnaire that evaluates individual risks for HIV based on sexual conduct, recent partners, and other factors.

More changes are needed. For example, the new guidelines still prevent everyone who takes PreP from donating blood. The guidelines do not, of course, encourage or recommend that anyone stop taking PrEP. But someone taking PrEP is barred until three months after their last dose of oral PrEP, or until two years after their last dose of injectable PrEP. For another, all potential donors who report anal sex with new or multiple partners in the previous three months will still be barred from donating – even if they’ve used condoms. With HIV tests available that are reliable within a window period of 33 days, one deferral period of three months or longer will continue to contribute to shortages in the supply of much-needed blood products, especially during emergencies.

Change is incremental, and eliminating donor restrictions based on identity rather than behavior has been a long time coming. We welcome it. And we encourage the FDA to continue forward so that its guidelines are entirely based on current scientific evidence and medical knowledge, rather than stereotypes and assumptions rooted in homophobia or Puritanism