Red Cross
Charlotte Regional Headquarters
2425 American Park Road
Charlotte, North Carolina 28203
September 19, 2010
Re: Blood Drive
To whom it may concern,
My name is Charlotte Frambois, and I'm a 33 year old mother of two who attends [omitted] Technical Community College in [omitted], NC. On September 15th 2010, I attended a blood drive on campus and donated blood just as I have for the last fifteen years. I've done so since high-school in hopes that, though I'm poor, though I'm average, I- one person, can make a difference in someone else's life. My donations became even more important to me when my Grandmother was diagnosed with leukemia and required weekly blood transfusions. I believe it's the right of every human being to be altruistic, and to be denied that opportunity of helping fellow-humankind when so much help is needed, when there is no rational reason or justification in not doing so, is a breach of our fundamental rights as a human being. It is offensive, and demeaning to suggest a woman in perfect health, who is unwilling to part with her convictions of who she is as a person be denied this opportunity to save another human life. However this is exactly what is happening, and until this fact changes I must ask that colleges, and any other organization which sponsors blood drives stop immediately. Continued sponsorship endorses discrimination which minorities have fought against for decades. I can no more allow the Red Cross to dictate who I am, then they should be allowed to dictate the false stereotypes upon minorities. Were this the Red Cross telling a person they are not the color they are, we would find such an idea a horrific atrocity. However when it's a woman who has recently obtained corrected legal documentation to represent the appropriate gender after corrective surgery she is told that she cannot be the gender she is, and therefore a “male”. She is told if she does not donate under the marker: “male” then she cannot give blood. The Red Cross's answer to me was to go away.
I am not male, nor have I ever been. I am female, born female. This distinction alone should be enough to appropriately allow the Red Cross to interpret their criteria for blood donations. The fact that at one time there was information in the system to indicate an alternate gender for myself, does not supersede the fact I was female then, and I am female now. However, The Red Cross believes this distinction warrants me a “former male”, and they have chosen to decide this despite popular medical opinion, and even their own trade publications.
“That is, your constant referral to transsexual women as “he” and “him” shows no science, only moralistic bias and reveals you as completely disrespectful. [as such is] unethical and arbitrarily discriminatory behavior which could open such blood banks up to litigation.”
-California Blood Bank Society Network Addenda
Their concern is since I use to have sex with men, which I have not, (as if it matters) that I'm more at risk to donate. In fact I would believe that my twenty or so past (and tested) donations that I've given should be a more appropriate indication of any sexual transmitted disease in my blood. Apparently not. I've had a single partner my entire life, a female if you must know, who has had only one partner herself- me. I was born with an intersex condition, meaning despite being female, my body developed in a ambiguous nature. Because of the (once thought) rarity of the issue and the small amount of medical information available on the subject 30 years ago, I was given a gender and raised in that gender only to decide once I was an adult the wrong choice was made for me. Now 33 years later, someone else is making a choice for me, a decision against my will. A decision without a rational or scientific explanation. One that takes the action of human altruistic behavior and removes all the respect and dignity for the individual- for me. A individual who gives of their own body for humanity is alienated by the Red Cross from humanity because they are seen as less than a woman. Perhaps less than human. For only those who have damaged blood or bodies cannot donate. This is how I felt when I received a call from your depository. I spent the afternoon in tears, and while it takes a great deal of humility to say it- I feel you should understand there is a person behind this letter, a reason to say these words- so that I or others shall be not made to feel this way any longer.
Let me be clear that I understand statistically why gay man are not allowed to donate. I also understand the law when it comes with respect to donation. It is however, not the law but the Red Cross's interpretation of such law that is a problem, for as I previously stated I am not a man, nor am I gay in that respect. Furthermore, from every legal, and medical standpoint I am now female. My legal identification, my status with the federal government, my body and more importantly my conviction. Furthermore, this policy is unjust in the fact it is discriminatory towards those in my current predicament. Those who have donated before and changed their legal information. You require no medical tests, or proof that any other donor to prove their gender- (despite statistics suggesting a portion of the donation population would be considered opposite of their “birth” gender) it's only when a donor openly and honestly provides that information you begin discriminating. In fact there are several problems with this concept since the policy is not applied evenly across all donors. Most importantly the fact that unless someone is open about it, then we must assume your current blood donation supply currently contains some undetermined portion of blood already from individuals such as myself. Secondly the only supplied alternative is to manufacture a false social security number and address and re-apply as a new donor. (Not very hard when only 8% of the population donates.) This policy, if analyzed by any rational individual; only serves to taint your blood donation data and encourage dishonesty. I could have quietly disappeared into the night and continued to donate in such a manner, but it would serve no one to continue to be oppressed under this unjust concept, to allow others to be oppressed- when I can and am able to unequivocally state my disagreement and provide scientific reasoning to abandon it:
As I sit here and write this I can still see the two puncture wounds in my arm. My own blood taken from me and not used in the manner I directed.
Red Cross staff knowingly falsifying my medical records against my own will to the gender of their choice despite legal documentation, and my own deposition to the contrary. (I understand this is a felony.)
Furthermore it is the belief of many legal and medical professionals that the data is owned by the patient while the forms and computers its stored on is owned by the Red Cross. I have already requested destruction of all my medical information, and that request has been denied. This simple mechanism could have allowed for an unbiased solution to this moral dilemma.
I have been advised the only procedure to continue my donation is only through my own self-slandering during intake to public staff members each time. Asked to knowingly lie to facilitate a antiquated and tort policy that's legally questionable and which by the Red Cross's own spokesman in Charlotte North Carolina states “is discriminatory.”
By the Red Cross's own admission, it is discriminatory prejudiced, and misogynistic towards women in similar medical predicament. The Red Cross's own website in fact states in its diversity statement that it provides no protections against gender :
“It makes no discrimination as to nationality, race, religious beliefs, class or political opinions. “
-http://www.redcrossblood.org/about-us/diversity
What needs to happen now is the Red Cross needs to re-examine their definition and interpretation of gender roles with respect to federal law. Understand a woman is a woman even if they are not (in a traditional sense) born one. That individual data is the sole ownership of the individual, and that the Red Cross is inhumanely attaching incorrect and purposely falsifying medical documentation because of their false premise that in some skewed vision, women could have been men, therefore fall into some higher statistic for blood risk.
Immediately until resolved, a genderless intake form and questionnaire should be provided to ALL donors of both sexes. (After all, you never know how many women use to be men and vice versa.) Though I imagine others will take as much offense to you inferring they aren't the gender they are, it is the only way without change to policy to equally and nondiscriminatory accept donations. Blood is genderless, and so should the blind face of greater donor population who knowingly gives of themselves their blood.
I implore and beg of you to question your own policy, and find resolve with this before you are legally held responsible. So that history may look back upon your organization as a champion of human rights, not the grotesque monster we now remember so many groups of past civil liberty movements. For myself I am responsible for my two children and my spouse. I hesitate to think of the day they are injured and are need of blood and there is none, when I must turn to my children and tell them that their brother, sister, or other mother died because I wasn't good enough as a human, as a woman, to donate my blood. That I couldn't, not because I wasn't willing, but because I wasn't allowed.
Sincerely,
Charlotte Frambois
