RALEIGH, N.C. — When he was in college, Lee Storrow was a regular blood donor. 

“I donated personally a lot of platelets when I was in undergrad at UNC, had donated about 75 units of platelets, was a regular platelet donor. There was a program through UNC to get folks in to donate because it’s so important,” Storrow said. “And then I came out, and I became ineligible to donate.”

 

What You Need to Know 

The FDA has changed their recommendations around gay men giving blood in the past decade 

Now any man or trans woman who has had sex with a man in the past three months is barred from donating 

The Red Cross is currently experiencing a blood shortage 

 

Storrow is now the Executive Director of the N.C. AIDS Action Network where he is an advocate for the rights and value of members of the LGBTQ community.

Even before he joined the group, he was fighting for rights when it comes to giving blood.

From 1985 to 2015, any man or trans woman who had sex with a man was ineligible to give blood, even if it was a single time.

In 2015, those recommendations shortened to within the past year.

Most recently, it was shortened again to three months in 2020. The FDA credited that decision to successful policies in the U.K. and Canada and their findings that the previous change had no increased risk to the blood supply.

For the first time in years, Storrow was able to donate again. However, his personal life later restricted his ability to donate.

It’s a policy that he says is frustrating, especially during a continued blood shortage.

“I’m a great candidate to be able to donate blood. I’m comfortable doing it. I’m not afraid of needles,” Storrow said.

The FDA said they are taking public input and conducting studies, but have no timeline on when another change to the policy could come.

Storrow said the science has improved enough to remove the regulations and the negative personal impacts that come with them.

“There’s this outcome that we have less healthy people able to donate blood, because of the stigmatized policy, but it also just reinforces a whole bunch of other notions that people already have about themselves, about their worth, around their value,” he said. “It’s not grounded in science anymore, and it also just ... really reinforces that shame and stigma.”