A Scottish man was turned away from a blood donation after he refused to answer whether he, a biological male, was pregnant.
Leslie Sinclair, 66, from Stirling in Scotland, who as a prolific blood donor gave away 125 pints of blood since he turned 18, ended up being turned away by Albert Halls clinic staff at his most recent appointment on Wednesday for refusing to answer a rather odd question on the pre-donation form:
“There is always a form to fill in and that’s fine – they tend to ask about medical conditions or diseases – and clearly that’s because the blood needs to be safe. This time around, there was a question I hadn’t seen before: ‘Are you pregnant, or have you been in the last six months?’ which required a yes or no answer. I pointed out to the staff that it was impossible for me to be in that position but I was told that I would need to answer, otherwise I couldn’t give blood. I told them that was stupid and that if I had to leave, I wouldn’t be back, and that was it, I got on my bike and cycled away.”
Pregnant women cannot give blood, and must wait six months after giving birth before doing so, and historically this has not applied to biological men who cannot give birth.
Professor Marc Turner, the director of the Scottish National Blood Tranfusion Service, pointed out that the pregnancy question was asked before a blood donation in order not to offend transgender individuals:
“Whilst pregnancy is only a relevant question to those whose biological sex or sex assigned at birth is female, sex assigned at birth is not always visually clear to staff. As a public body we take cognisance of changes in society around how such questions may be asked without discrimination and have a duty to promote inclusiveness – therefore all donors are now asked the same questions.”
Sinclair slammed the “nonsensical” decision for being asked whether he was pregnant or not before the blood donation.
“It makes me angry because there are vulnerable people waiting for blood, including children, and in desperate need of help,” he said. “But they’ve been denied my blood because of the obligation to answer a question that can’t possibly be answered.”
Last week, NHS England launched a new campaign to recruit one million more blood donors, after the numbers of people giving blood fell dramatically over the course of the coronavirus pandemic.
The SNBTS had previously also launched a campaign to find another 16,000 new donors this year.
