Blood donation by gay men should no longer be banned – consultative council

LGBTIQ action plan presented • Video by Ray Attard

The LGBTIQ action plan 2015-2017 was presented to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and Equality Minister Helena Dalli, with a proposal to overturn a ban stopping gay men from donating blood.

The proposal, put forward by the LGBTIQ consultative council, says that the lifetime ban on men who have sex with men currently enforced by the Blood Donation Unit within the National Health Service should be addressed.

“The action plan contains a number of proposals to the government which are aimed to help make equality a reality in the local community,” council chair Gabi Calleja said.

The action plan includes the recasting of the Equality for Men and Women Act into an equality act for all spheres of life, the adoption of a new human rights and equality commission act, a proper understanding of hate crimes and how to deal with them, as well as the provision of resources for schools including story books for children and adolescents as well as resource packs for children.  

The plan further calls for removing obstacles that impede the right to private and family life, including reviewing the provisions within the Embryo protection act, and seeking protocols from third countries that allow for adoption by same- sex couples. It also seeks to introduce an alternative gender marker to M or F on the ID card or passport and to guarantee the full recognition of a person's identity.

Dalli said that one of the proposals is a draft law to make harmful 'conversion' therapies a crime. The therapies claim that homosexuality is a disease to be cured.

"We are very proud of the achievements we have already achieved in this sector with the enactment of the civil unions bill in 2014 and the gender Identity bill earlier this year, but we still have a long way to go," the minister added.

Muscat said that the group had been a great inspiration for the government and that the council would be essential to identify the next challenges to be met in this particular sector.

"We need to look forward to identify what the needs of this group are and to see how we can achieve better equality " Muscat said, adding that one of the upcoming challenges was the issue of IVF for same sex and transgender couples,” Muscat said.

"Once we have clear discussions we can overcome these challenges. Although the political leadership is willing to overcome these issues, we cannot underestimate the social challenges ahead of us and we cannot be guided by numbers."

The action plan had been the result of many years of hard work by various groups including the aditus foundation, AD LGBTIQ, Drachma, Gender Liberation, MGRM, Forum opportunitajiet indaqs, LBGTI+ Gozo and We Are.