I am not a disease vector: Why the Union government’s stand on blood donation is unscientific and reeks of queerphobia

The answer is investing in research on the affected groups, and revising the donor questionnaires in a manner that focuses on individual risks so that all donors are treated equally. It is time that queer people and sex workers are treated as truly equal citizens.

—

"MOST importantly, the epidemic was only news when it was not killing homosexuals. In this sense, AIDS remained a fundamentally gay disease, newsworthy only by the virtue of the fact that it sometimes hit people who weren't gay."

 ― American journalist and writer Randy Shilts, And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic (1987)

In the middle of the second COVID-19 wave in 2021, a friend called me up. They asked me if I could donate plasma to help treat their COVID-infected husband. (This was before we knew that plasma therapy for COVID is not efficacious). I had to tell them that I could not donate blood, simply because I am a queer person. I did not have a sexually transmitted infection, and I knew it because I get tested regularly. I also told them that there was a petition filed by Santa Khurai, a Manipuri Nupi Manbi activist, challenging the said guidelines at the Supreme Court as being violative of Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution.