#GotBlood2Give/DuSangÀDonner Presents: Black Queer & Trans Blood Blog
Symposium on Anti-Black Homophobia in Canadian Blood Services Donation protocols: The Recap
Dr. OmiSoore Dryden, expert, activist, leading scholar, and Principal Investigator of #GotBlood2Give /DuSangÀDonner held an online symposium on June 25-26, 2021. The symposium brought together leading scholars, activists, artists, and health professionals in Canada to discuss Dr. Dryden’s extensive research and scholarship. Together they traced the historical significance of blood in furthering Canada’s settler colonial project, the anti-Black, homophobic, and transphobic biopolitics and protocols practiced in Canadian Blood Services (CBS) that disproportionately impact Black queer and trans people, and Dr. Dryden’s experience of anti-Black racism, misogynoir, and lesbophobia at the hands of CBS staff and leadership. Speakers such as Dr. Beverly Bain and Dr. Eli Manning beautifully discussed Dr. Dryden’s theorization of Blackness as always being queer. Black queerness and transness thereby quantitatively and peripherally transcend the bounds of white cis-homonormative norms of belonging. This space is elsewhere to colonial white supremacist homonormative nation building to which revisioning blood donation is imaginable!
Where it all began
It is essential to connect scientific advances in blood plasma, blood collection and donation to the methodology, research, and expertise of Dr. Charles R. Drew (1904-1950). Dr. Drew was an African American physician and McGill University alum that developed ground-breaking methods and protocols for storing blood plasma in blood banks. In 1941, the Red Cross Blood Bank appointed Dr. Drew to collect blood for military soldiers in North America. Dr. Drew resigned after a policy enforced the racial segregation of blood storage and transfusion, and he disproved this practice as it was racist and not based on current scientific practice. The tainted blood scandal and theanti-Black and homophobic stigma of HIVand AIDS (the signification of AIDS) is also a historical foundation of what is happening today. For further information check out the following articles by Dr. OmiSoore Dryden here, and here
It is this collective historical backdrop to which anti-Black racism continues to shape blood donation protocols and the experiences of African, Caribbean, and Black (ACB) LGBTQ folks navigating blood donation today.
Blood as a metaphor for nation building
In a roundtable discussion with Dr. Nehal El-Hadi and Dr. Suzanne Lenon, Dr. Dryden illustrate and gives insight into the colonial, anti-Black, homophobic, transphobic, and ableist frameworks that permeate CBS’s blood narratives of blood safety. Blood serves colonial nation-building by defining those whose blood is safe, healthy, clean, and "gives life” in contrast with those whose blood, based on identity, is considered unsafe, unhealthy/sick, unclean, and therefore would “bring death.” Blood is a tool of structural division that is deployed to weave together an imagined community of belonging for a select few – those considered to be “the nation.”
During the HIV/AIDS crisis and the tainted blood scandal, Canadian health officials’ reliance on early and subjective scientific HIV/AIDS research [1] led to a ban on men who had sex with men (MSM), Haitian people (regardless of citizenship and sexual orientation), hemophiliacs and heroin users, from donating blood. Furthermore, CBS exacerbated the “epidemic of stigmatization” (the signification of hiv) also present during the HIV/AIDS crisis and the tainted blood scandal through its perpetuation of anti-black, homophobic, transphobic, and sex-phobic rhetoric in its donor protocols and questionnaire.
Dr. Nathan Lachowsky and Dr. Manning explain how Dr. Dryden’s scholarship demonstrates that white queer political organizing operated within a single-issue analysis and critique, prioritizing one question deemed “the gay question” at the expense of all other questions. Reflecting on Dr. Dryden’s leadership when she states that expanding beyond one single question better reflects the realities of Black queer and trans people who live at the intersections and confront multiple barriers to donating blood. There are additional stigmatizing questions in the donor questionnaire that impact queer and trans lives that must also be addressed.
[1] AIDS as a metaphor, Priscillia Wald, Marlon Bailey, Triechler,
The economy of labour in addressing anti-Blackness
Mme Rania El Mugammar situates Dr. Dryden’s experiences with CBS staff and leadership within the economy of labour in addressing anti-Blackness, which is performative, extractive, and violent. Dr. Dryden has researched, identified, the anti-Black racism in donor protocols with CBS only to be met with contempt, and harassment. CBS has not publicly acknowledged nor apologized for its systemic anti-Black racism and racial profiling of Black people in general and Black queer and trans people more specifically. As a health agency, CBS must adapt and deliver on the Canadian Federal Government’s Call to action on anti-racism, equity, and inclusion by directly addressing and hiring new leadership capable of tackling anti-Black racism, including anti-Black homophobia/transphobia.
Elsewhere as a space for radical and transformative change
Dr. Dryden calls for radical, transformative, and culturally competent blood donor practices and protocols. Blood is a site for undoing and (re)making existing power relations and structures! Dr. Dryden argues that employing radical Black queer feminist health politics will change the blood donation system in ways that serve us all! Thus ensuring a space of ongoing reflection and harm reduction, creating more up-to-date health structures which would increase accountability.
By Jada Joseph and Dr. OmiSoore Dryden
Stay tuned for future Black Queer & Trans Blood Blogs on our website, Twitter and Facebook pages.
Where it all began
It is essential to connect scientific advances in blood plasma, blood collection and donation to the methodology, research, and expertise of Dr. Charles R. Drew (1904-1950). Dr. Drew was an African American physician and McGill University alum that developed ground-breaking methods and protocols for storing blood plasma in blood banks. In 1941, the Red Cross Blood Bank appointed Dr. Drew to collect blood for military soldiers in North America. Dr. Drew resigned after a policy enforced the racial segregation of blood storage and transfusion, and he disproved this practice as it was racist and not based on current scientific practice. The tainted blood scandal and theanti-Black and homophobic stigma of HIVand AIDS (the signification of AIDS) is also a historical foundation of what is happening today. For further information check out the following articles by Dr. OmiSoore Dryden here, and here
It is this collective historical backdrop to which anti-Black racism continues to shape blood donation protocols and the experiences of African, Caribbean, and Black (ACB) LGBTQ folks navigating blood donation today.
Blood as a metaphor for nation building
In a roundtable discussion with Dr. Nehal El-Hadi and Dr. Suzanne Lenon, Dr. Dryden illustrate and gives insight into the colonial, anti-Black, homophobic, transphobic, and ableist frameworks that permeate CBS’s blood narratives of blood safety. Blood serves colonial nation-building by defining those whose blood is safe, healthy, clean, and "gives life” in contrast with those whose blood, based on identity, is considered unsafe, unhealthy/sick, unclean, and therefore would “bring death.” Blood is a tool of structural division that is deployed to weave together an imagined community of belonging for a select few – those considered to be “the nation.”
During the HIV/AIDS crisis and the tainted blood scandal, Canadian health officials’ reliance on early and subjective scientific HIV/AIDS research [1] led to a ban on men who had sex with men (MSM), Haitian people (regardless of citizenship and sexual orientation), hemophiliacs and heroin users, from donating blood. Furthermore, CBS exacerbated the “epidemic of stigmatization” (the signification of hiv) also present during the HIV/AIDS crisis and the tainted blood scandal through its perpetuation of anti-black, homophobic, transphobic, and sex-phobic rhetoric in its donor protocols and questionnaire.
Dr. Nathan Lachowsky and Dr. Manning explain how Dr. Dryden’s scholarship demonstrates that white queer political organizing operated within a single-issue analysis and critique, prioritizing one question deemed “the gay question” at the expense of all other questions. Reflecting on Dr. Dryden’s leadership when she states that expanding beyond one single question better reflects the realities of Black queer and trans people who live at the intersections and confront multiple barriers to donating blood. There are additional stigmatizing questions in the donor questionnaire that impact queer and trans lives that must also be addressed.
[1] AIDS as a metaphor, Priscillia Wald, Marlon Bailey, Triechler,
The economy of labour in addressing anti-Blackness
Mme Rania El Mugammar situates Dr. Dryden’s experiences with CBS staff and leadership within the economy of labour in addressing anti-Blackness, which is performative, extractive, and violent. Dr. Dryden has researched, identified, the anti-Black racism in donor protocols with CBS only to be met with contempt, and harassment. CBS has not publicly acknowledged nor apologized for its systemic anti-Black racism and racial profiling of Black people in general and Black queer and trans people more specifically. As a health agency, CBS must adapt and deliver on the Canadian Federal Government’s Call to action on anti-racism, equity, and inclusion by directly addressing and hiring new leadership capable of tackling anti-Black racism, including anti-Black homophobia/transphobia.
Elsewhere as a space for radical and transformative change
Dr. Dryden calls for radical, transformative, and culturally competent blood donor practices and protocols. Blood is a site for undoing and (re)making existing power relations and structures! Dr. Dryden argues that employing radical Black queer feminist health politics will change the blood donation system in ways that serve us all! Thus ensuring a space of ongoing reflection and harm reduction, creating more up-to-date health structures which would increase accountability.
By Jada Joseph and Dr. OmiSoore Dryden
Stay tuned for future Black Queer & Trans Blood Blogs on our website, Twitter and Facebook pages.