(Photo from Wikimedia Commons)
Health Canada approved Canadian Blood Services’ submission to eliminate the three-month donor deferral period for gay and bisexual men as well as some other folks in the LGBTQ+ community CTV News reported April 28.
The policy change, which was years in the making, will allow CBS to introduce the new behavior-based questionnaire by Sept. 30. It will apply to both blood and plasma donations. CBS will be able to screen all donors regardless of gender or sexuality. Instead, donors will be screened based on their sexual behaviors.
Health Canada has authorized Canadian Blood Services’ submission to eliminate the 3-month donor deferral period for men who have sex with men, and instead screen all donors for high-risk sexual behaviourhttps://t.co/qCsCAIOWTN
— GC Newsroom (@NewsroomGC) April 28, 2022
Census data released April 27 offers an unprecedented snapshot of Canada’s transgender population, showing 0.33% of residents identify as a gender that differs from the sex they were assigned at birth.
The data collected during last year’s national household survey shows about 100,815 people are transgender or nonbinary, including 31,555 who are transgender women, 27,905 who are transgender men and 41,355 who are nonbinary, CTV News reported.
It’s the first time Statistics Canada has differentiated between “sex at birth” and “gender” in the census. While the agency and advocates agree the new numbers likely underestimate the true size of the population, they say the data will offer crucial insight into a marginalized community.
New data from the #2021Census are now available:
• Age and type of dwelling: https://t.co/8LCaDd0lM9
• Sex at birth and gender: https://t.co/RVLsQFLzAQCheck out the thread below for some key highlights: 👇 pic.twitter.com/PWHW7Gmbh2
— Statistics Canada (@StatCan_eng) April 27, 2022
Fae Johnstone, a transgender advocate, told CTV that population-level data backing up trans people’s lived experience has thus far been slim, so this new information is important both symbolically and practically.
“It says something when our government is recognizing the existence of trans folks who have historically been kept out of these conversations and uncounted,” Johnstone said. “But it also is useful to us to better understand how we can focus interventions and address health inequities experienced by trans folks across this country.”
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