Ok so lets talk blood. Obviously this is an important step forward, however the decisions and recommendations are still seeped in deep institutional homophobia.

A

Context: The ban on gay men giving blood was brought in in 1980 in the face of the AIDS epidemic, where little was known about HIV and testing was patchy at best. This is understandable- however what should have been a temporary measure has remained in status quo for 4 decades 2/

The 'deferral period' of 3 months, brought in in 2011, allowed a straight woman to have unprotected sex with an HIV positive man and give blood the next day while gay men had to remain abstinent for 3 months regardless of the riskiness of their sex. 3/

The obvious problem was that assumptions were being made about the risk of gay men giving blood that showed an ignorance and lack of understanding on the part of policymakers which was rightly criticised and lobbied against 4/

Over the years, LGBT+ lobbying has largely used the image of beautiful white middle class gay men in a long term committed relationship to sell the idea of equality to conservative Britain - 'We're just like you!' we shout as we show people our fascia of respectability. 5/