At a time when Canada’s blood supply is critically low, there’s a massive untapped pool of potential donors — the estimated 369,000 MSM (men who have sex with men) who are banned from donating. There is no such thing as gay blood. Help us #EndTheBan.

About the ban:

Canada’s ban on male donors whose sexual partners are also male, dates back to the mid 1980s — a time when AIDS was rapidly emerging as a deadly, incurable threat. The gay community was in crisis, and no HIV testing procedures for blood donations were in place yet. At the time, a sweeping ban made sense, but a lot has changed since then. Today, every donation given at Canadian Blood Services is thoroughly tested for pathogens, including HIV.

In 2013, CBS took a first step towards lifting the ban, allowing males who had been abstinent from sex with other men for a minimum of five years to donate. Although this was a step in the right direction, it only applies to a fraction of the potential donors.

For more information on how you can help #EndTheBan, please visit:

www.ccdi.ca/endtheban