LGBT Indians demand end to ‘discriminatory’ blood donation ban

In 2018, India’s top court legalised gay sex in a landmark ruling – but the country still doesn’t allow transgender people and gay and bisexual men to donate blood.

People from the LGBT community say the decades-old ban is “discriminatory” and have gone to court to challenge it.

When Vyjayanti Vasanta Mogli’s mother was on her deathbed battling advanced Parkinson’s, she needed regular blood transfusions.

But Ms Mogli, a trans woman based in the southern city of Hyderabad, couldn’t donate blood despite being her mother’s sole caregiver.

“I had to keep posting [requests for blood donors] on WhatsApp and Facebook groups,” she said, describing the process as “traumatising”.

Ms Mogli was fortunate to find donors for her mum but many others aren’t.

Beoncy Laisharam – a doctor in the north-eastern state of Manipur – recounted the experience of one of her patients, whose transgender daughter was unable to give blood for his treatment.

“The father needed two to three units of blood daily. They were unable to find blood from other sources,” she said.

“He died two days after being brought in.”

It was such stories that pushed Sharif Ragnerka, a 55-year-old writer and activist, to file a petition in India’s Supreme Court against the ban on blood donation by LGBT people.

Indian laws prohibit LGBT people from donating blood on the ground that they are high-risk groups for HIV-Aids – it is compulsory for donors to be free from diseases that are transmissible by blood transfusion.

The policy dates back to the 1980s, when several countries imposed similar bans to reign in an HIV-Aids epidemic raging across the world, which killed thousands.

Despite change in attitudes, subsequent policies have kept the ban in place, including the latest rule drafted in 2017.

Filed in July, the plea argues that the existing blood donation policies are “highly prejudicial and presumptive” and violate the fundamental rights of “equality, dignity and life” of the LGBT community.

The court has asked the federal government to respond to Mr Ragnerka’s plea and tagged it with two similar court cases filed in 2021 and 2023 that are pending before it.