Twitter has decided to stop company blood drives after a gay employee said he barred from giving blood during a recent drive.
Since 1983 the FDA has banned any man who has had sex with another man since 1977 from giving blood, as well as transgender women, who are categorized as part of the group of "men who have sex with men," since the organization doesn't have a system for recognizing them.
According to The Advocate, the FDA revealed a possible revision to the policy which would allow gay and bisexual men to donate blood only if they haven't had sex for a year; however advocates doesn't say it doesn't do enough to change a policy based on outdated science.
Twitter stopped holding drives in April, but announced their decision Wednesday. "We made the choice to take a company stand against some of our employees being turned away from donating blood and will channel our efforts into education about this issue until this unnecessary and discriminatory policy is changed," Brian “Skip” Schipper, Twitter’s vice president of human resources and executive sponsor of TwitterOpen, the company's LGBT employee group, told the International Business Times.
TwitterOpen is promoting a petition to alter the donation policy and will continue to boycott blood drives until the restrictions are lifted. Read more HERE.
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