LGBT Soldiers and Blood Donor Regulations: The Latest in International LGBT Contexts

As battles over LGBT civil rights in the U.S. continue to move by fits and starts, it’s worth getting some international context to see just how far behind—or ahead of—the game we are. Sure, the U.S. is ahead of a lot of countries, like Uganda or Malawi, which make a practice of executing or imprisoning their citizens for homosexuality, but that’s a pretty low bar. How does the U.S. compare to other developed nations? A couple news items yesterday offer some context.

In the first place, there was an op-ed in yesterday’s Politico by three foreign military officers, commenting on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. The officers—from the Netherlands, Sweden, and the U.K.—basically said that the U.S. military is pretty stupid to still be actively discriminating against LGBT soldiers, but also added a piece of cultural comparison that I think we’re not hearing enough of in DADT discussions:

We are aware of colleagues in our own militaries who don’t like it that gays and lesbians serve openly. However, despite considerable fears before we enacted these policies, such attitudes are rare.

In no cases, in fact, have negative private opinions about gay people undermined our ability to work with one another. Our service members are professionals who care, first and foremost, about the ability to do the job.

Moral opposition to homosexuality, while real, is just not allowed to undercut our militaries’ missions.

Nor do we think it will have any impact on yours after you repeal “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

This is an important point because many Americans seem to believe that ending anti-gay discrimination in European and Israeli militaries faced no resistance because our cultures are more tolerant.

In fact, our polls, rhetoric and even threats of mass resignations were quite similar to the continuing resistance in America. Yet none of the doomsday scenarios came true.

Yes, it’s a very important point, and I don’t think it’s getting enough press. We’ve heard a lot about how other countries’ militaries have been able to cope just fine with LGBT soldiers serving openly, but now we can also know that our peer nations managed to make their own policy changes through not allowing a vocal, homophobic minority to dictate policy which contravenes popular opinion. Given that 75% of Americans now support repealing DADT, perhaps the U.S. can overcome the dysfunctionality of its legislative process and catch up to the Netherlands, Sweden, and the U.K.

If this news suggests that the U.S. is hopelessly behind the rest of the developed world on LGBT rights, I was very surprised by a second piece from yesterday which cast that conclusion into doubt. Canada, whose national same-sex marriage law is several years old, and which has long permitted LGBT soldiers in its armed forces, still (like the U.S.) prohibits gay men from donating blood. According to the Globe and Mail, scientists are just starting to float the possibility of easing those restrictions somewhat—by allowing only men in long-term, monogamous relationships with other men, but not men who have multiple or serial male partners, to donate blood. It’s a ridiculous excuse for “moderation,” which doesn’t at all silence the implicit homophobia in policies like this which assume that gay and bisexual men will have HIV, or won’t know their HIV status. Since donated blood is tested for HIV anyway, and since it would be pretty reasonable to ask blood donors their HIV status when they donate, roadblocks like these are simple homophobia from an earlier age—and you’d think, after all these years since the onset of the AIDS crisis, and all these other strides in civil rights, that both the U.S. and Canada would have learned better.

The only consolation is that this indicates that the U.S. isn’t as far behind its peers on LGBT rights as one might otherwise assume.

Emily is a staff writer for Campus Progress. She attends Princeton University.

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