As a child, I really wanted to give blood. No, I do not mean I wanted to play hockey, I wanted to donate my blood cells to the Red Cross and save the life of somebody I would never meet. Unfortunately, this dream will never be realized because somebody whispered to somebody else there was a possibility I was a fag.
There I was. The nurse was about to stick me with the needle when a director walked over.
“Could you please come into my office?” she asked. The director looked liked everybody’s classic Scottish grandmother in her pink knitted shawl.
“One of our volunteers said he saw you at Outright,” she said after she closed the office door. Outright is a hangout for gay, lesbian, bisexual and straight youth between the ages of 16 and 22. One of their rules is to respect the privacy of the people who go. People who go there are not supposed to say if they saw somebody there.
“Really?” I said, taken aback.
“There’s a possibility you might be gay,” said the woman. She then explained that since there was the threat I was a practicing homosexual (a homosexual who has had sex with another person) they would not take my blood. If I ever tried to donate blood again, it would be a federal offense.
When she said all this, I cried. It was the first time in four years I had cried and in the almost five years since that day I have not cried since. I tried to tell her and her organization to go to Hell. I wanted her to feel as much hurt as I had just felt in that moment. The pain did not come from simple discrimination; I had gotten over that a long time ago. This was different. I faced discriminated because I had associated with possible homosexuals, as if in some way being in the vicinity of one of ‘those’ people had contaminated me.
As I tried to choke out the hurtful words, she reached over and gave me a hug. “I’m sorry I have to do this,” she said. She said she was just doing her job. I said nothing and left.
It’s the timeless excuse: It’s not my problem, not my department. It’s not my job to make change. Social injustice is not my responsibility. I hear this whenever I think of her, whenever I think about all the things going wrong in this world that need change and nobody seems to be in a position to change them.
I left the clinic with all of my blood that day, but I lost something while I was there. I lost the desire to help somebody I would never meet. Unlike blood, this can never grow back.