"He died two days after being brought in.”
People from the Indian LGBT community have gone to court to challenge the decades-old ban against them donating blood.
India’s Supreme Court legalised gay sex in 2018. But India still doesn’t allow transgender people and gay and bisexual men to donate blood.
Vyjayanti Vasanta Mogli’s mother was on her deathbed with advanced Parkinson’s and needed regular blood transfusions.
However, her daughter, who is a trans woman based in Hyderabad, was not able to donate blood to her mother despite being her sole caregiver.
She said: “I had to keep posting (requests for blood donors) on WhatsApp and Facebook groups.”
Ms Mogli described the process as “traumatising”.
Although Ms Mogli eventually found a donor for her mother, many are not so lucky.
Beoncy Laishram, a doctor from Manipur, spoke about how one of her patients had a transgender daughter who was unable to give blood for treatment.
Dr Laishram said: “The father needed two to three units of blood daily. They were unable to find blood from other sources. He died two days after being brought in.”
These stories pushed Sharif Ragnerka, a 55-year-old writer and activist, to file a petition in the Supreme Court over the ban on blood donation by LGBT people.
The ban against donating blood is in place because they are seen as a high-risk group for HIV and AIDS, and donors must be free of all diseases that are transmissible by blood transfusion.
This policy has been in place since the 1980s when several countries imposed this ban to control the HIV and AIDS epidemic that was spreading across the world and killing thousands.
The plea filed in court argues that these blood donation policies are “highly prejudicial and presumptive” and violate the fundamental rights of “equality, dignity and life” of the LGBT community.
The Supreme Court has asked the federal government to respond to Mr Ragnerka’s plea and this case has been tagged with two similar ones in 2021 and 2023.
In a previous hearing, the government defended the ban by citing a 2021 health ministry report.
The report stated that transgender people, gay and bisexual men, were “six to 13 times” more at risk of contracting HIV than the general population.
Joy Mammen, an expert on blood transfusion, said:
“The government’s policy is for mitigating risk with no moral judgement (attached to) it.”
However, critics say this policy is discriminatory and makes them feel “excluded and insignificant”.
Dr Beoncy added: “Other genders also have HIV-positive people, but their entire community is not banned (from donating blood).”
It is estimated that there are tens of millions of LGBT people in India.
The Indian government estimated its population to be 2.5 million in 2012, but global estimates suggest this number could be well over 135 million.
Advocates for the lifting of this ban have also highlighted that the ban stops access to crucial medical care, as it bars them from taking blood from their partners.
Sahil Choudhary, an LGBT activist, said: “If there’s a blanket ban on blood donation by LGBT people, how do you expect community members to receive help in emergencies?”
A study published by the Public Library of Science in 2022 estimated that India has an annual blood deficit of around one million units.
Other countries, like the US, have put in place a questionnaire where donors must answer questions about their recent sexual histories.
These questions help to screen people who have engaged in “high-risk sexual behaviour” and ask them to defer from donating blood for three months.
The logic behind this is that the new testing technology helps to detect HIV cases faster, as it is based on an individual risk assessment.
Petitioners in India are arguing for a similar blood donation system based on “actual risk” rather than “perceived risk”.
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