Red Crossed

I got a cold call from the Red Cross. They suggested I come in and I didn’t think to tell them they would see me when that saw fit to rethink their sexist policies. I wanted to donate blood.

It's hard, I'm a woman. for me eating fish and other high iron foods doesn't help, iron pills make me ill and the addition of daily vitamins only gives me very expensive urine. Despite this, I have a pin that says I have donated a gallon of blood, this took me three years and countless visits and many humiliations but I did it. I wanted to achieve more. I liked donating because it made me feel good, like I was helping other people I was part of something and it always made me amazed how well thought out we were, to have these nifty inter-changeable parts and now that I can’t, it makes me feel like something that needs to be recycled. But I still try, it’s humiliating when I can’t, but I still try because maybe this time I can.

Among their offensive policies? I mean other then penalizing me for not being a man. Asking me my gender, to my face. It’s a new question among the other pre-pre-screening questions .The woman went through my demographics, name, rank and serial number and then she said, looking right at me : Sex? I looked at her, I looked down to see if my tits were still there, and said Female, in a very girly voice, thank you very much. I know my sneakers do nothing for my girlish figure but my tits usually rat me out. Besides, would a cross dresser be seen in mom jeans?

The technician later told me that they have to ask now because when they test the blood they can tell if it is male or female and the blood in the bags wasn’t matching the blood under the scope - this is very upsetting to the technicians. It makes me wonder who they are hiring to do the pre-screening with the prospective donors. I can understand maybe, across a large room under poor lighting and with beer goggles, not being able to correctly guess the sex an individual, maybe, if you were stupid. But in a tiny room under unkind florescent lights? You would really have to be doing it on purpose and I can kind of understand why.

There are rules that preclude gay men from donating blood They ask very specific, very detailed, very personal questions about how, when, where and with whom prospective donors have had gay sex with. It doesn’t matter how dedicated to safe sex gay men are, how many tests they take and pass - They are gay men and they can not donate blood. Due to those questions, I can understand wanting to get around them. But, you may lie about your gender but your blood will out you.

Needless to say, while I passed my orals, I failed the road test. Since these failures always lead me directly to self loathing, and self loathing to self destructive behavior, on the way home I got a milk shake - because there is nothing I need less then four or five hundred empty calories. But I am a failure as a human being, I deserve to get fat.

I am a completely healthy specimen, I don’t even met the clinical definition of anemia! In the real world, I am in good health, but the Red Cross thinks it’s not good enough.