Héma-Québec urged to come up with policy for transgender blood donors
A transgender man says Héma-Québec should come up with a clear policy when it comes to transgender donors, after he was turned away from a blood drive clinic.
Shaun Turney has been giving blood since 2014 but ever since he started taking testosterone and had Héma-Québec change his sex marker from female to male, he says he's been faced with a number of awkward situations.
Recently, after being questioned for more than an hour, he was told he couldn't give blood that evening.
"It was frustrating," Turney told CBC. "I never felt like anyone was rude or they weren't courteous. Everybody was very nice to me, but it was clear, they were just ill-prepared for that situation, and they were also uninformed about how to interact with a transgender patient."
Turney said the agency should bring doctors and transgender individuals together to come up with a policy.
"I think there should be a policy for two reasons. One is that, that way, the staff and the nurses will feel prepared when the situation comes up, as it inevitably will, and everyone will feel comfortable, including the potential donor," said Turney.
"The second reason is, if there's no official policy, then we don't know how a transgender person is going to be treated. So we don't know it they are going to be treated fairly and in a medically sound way."
Case-by-case basis
Héma-Québec confirms it has no policy for transgender donors.
"If the person qualifies according to the various qualification criteria that we have at [the agency], then that person can certainly donate blood," said Dr. Marc Germain, vice-president of medical affairs at Héma-Québec.
Germain says trans donors are 'exceptional situations,' and last year, only a dozen or so wanted to give blood.
"In our regular blood drives, we have, on a daily basis, around 1,000 donors showing up. These exceptional situations cannot be handled at the blood clinic or drive. That's why we refer these cases to the medical director."
Germain says Héma-Québec staff are trained to deal with most situations that arise with donors.
"It has been only in the most recent years that we've had such requests, so we have started to do some training of our staff, and we will continue in that direction."
Canadian Blood Services has policy
In mid-August, the agency that handles blood donations in the rest of Canada, Canadian Blood Services, introduced a new policy for transgender women.
Trans women who undergo gender confirming surgery will have to wait one year before they can donate blood. After the wait period, Canadian Blood Services will also identify them by their reconfirmed gender.
"If a trans woman has not had [gender confirming surgery], that person would be considered as a male having sex with a male," said Dr. Mindy Goldman, medical director of Canadian Blood Services.
Activists criticized the policy at the time, calling it discriminatory.
