Gay employees at the creative company Mother have created a T-shirt printed using their blood to protest the gay blood donation ban in the US.
The company, which has offices in New York and London, launched the Blood is Blood T-shirt to highlight the discrimination LGBT people face when donating blood.
The front of the T-shirt reads: “This shirt is printed with the blood of gay men.”
On the back, a longer piece of text states the US Food and Drug Administration’s current guidelines for donating blood are “outdated” and propagate stigma.
The T-shirts will be sold at gender-neutral retailer The Phluid Project, with proceeds going to Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, a LGBTQ service provider in New York.
The ink for the shirt was created by British artist Stuart Semple.
It was launched for Pride month and World Blood Donor Day.
Under US federal law, men who have sex with men (MSM) cannot give blood for 12 months from their last sexual encounter.
The law came into effect in 2015, when the FDA overturned a lifetime ban on accepting blood donations from MSM, which was introduced in 1983 during the AIDS epidemic.
The Blood is Blood website reads: “Due to the stigma of another era, members of the community can’t be proud of their own blood. The Food and Drug Administration claims that the blood of men who have had sex with men in the last 12 months is ‘too risky’ to donate.”
The post These gay men created a T-shirt made of their blood to protest donation ban appeared first on PinkNews - Gay news, reviews and comment from the world's most read lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans news service.