Every other post.
Want a taste of Québecois cinema? Here’s some movies I recommend to make a festival at home. Cover still from C.R.A.Z.Y.
Drama. About the protagonist growing up as he comes to understand his sexuality, and his relationship with his family.
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This month, my retirement savings surpassed what my parents sold their detached home in an Ottawa suburb for in the mid-nineties, and two-thirds the cost of the two-storey home with a pool they bought in the early aughts.
I can’t afford a small apartment-style condo. The median cost for one is over double the cost of that detached home twenty years ago. It took me a dozen years to build enough savings to afford the down-payment; partly because home prices kept outpacing wage growth, partly because rent exploded during the same period, and ate at my savings. My current two-bedroom apartment costs $2,100 a month, and is a third of the size of the $900/mo townhome I was renting fifteen years ago.
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A few months ago, I mentioned that I was likely terminating my journey with the fertility clinic after being with them for ten years. I signed the paperwork last week; it’s done. There is now a zero chance of having biological children.
Perhaps because I had so many months to reflect on it, I didn’t feel anything in the moment of doing so that I hadn’t already been feeling for months. In that previous post I sounded pretty messed up. Right now, I just feel an emptiness and acceptance.
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On May 10, the Canadian Blood Service offered an apology for the ban on blood donations from gay men and trans women. For most of my life, the CBS treated my blood as filthy. Even though I’ve only had sex a handful of times in my life and was regularly tested, my blood was considered a threat to the supply while that of straight people engaging in far riskier sexual activity with no testing faced no such degrading assessment. All because of who I was not what I did.
The policy was put in place with the intent to protect patient safety after the Canadian blood system crisis of the 1980s. We regret that for many years the former policy also contributed to discrimination, homophobia, transphobia, and HIV stigma within society.
Canadian Blood Services apology letter
The policy targeting gay men was introduced in the mid-80’s at a time when the Canadian government was openly purging gay and lesbian workers from its ranks. The response to the HIV virus, the scapegoating for the tainted blood scandal, and the blanket blood ban is inextricable from this homophobia. The ban was later explicitly extended from men who have sex with men to trans women. Whether through indifference or cowardice, the prohibition continued until 2022. With no credible science justifying such a policy into the new millennium, the CBS turned to absurd claims such as that between a quarter and a third of all trans women had HIV in Canada. I dug into the origins of this particular assertion about trans women in 2020.
Instead of admitting that the science didn’t justify this ban, the CBS upheld demonstrably false claims at the expense of people like me who were presented as a threat. They did so up until two years ago, and that is so recent that it makes it hard for me to accept this apology as authentic. Especially as the CBS doesn’t acknowledge these actions at all.
Canadian Blood Services apologizes to gay, bi, and queer men, trans people and queer people more broadly, for the impact of the former deferral policy. We acknowledge how this policy reinforced the harmful public perception that someone’s blood is somehow less safe, because of their sexual orientation.
Canadian Blood Services apology letter
I do support the agency releasing their statement. If it brings relief to a single person who was hurt by their actions, then that’s reason enough. I am however simultaneously deeply frustrated and skeptical.
My anger is to do with a larger pattern in Canadian institutions: cis and straight people in positions of power can hurt gender and sexual minorities with impunity for years, including those working for them. Then when it becomes profitable to do so, or untenable not to, they change tack and walk away without consequence. Meanwhile, endured years of substandard living or worse because of the rejection they faced in all aspects of their life. Though small, the blood ban and the associated intellectually dishonest claims were a contributor to that hostility. The reversal of homophobic and transphobic stances across various organizations, of which again the CBS was only one, doesn’t reverse the fortunes of those who were most impacted. If only it that could be solved by publishing a letter.
To assuage my skepticism, I need proof that there was a fundamental shift in values that transcend gender identity and sexual orientation. Show me what individuals within the organization will do to act differently, because an apology written by committee is hardly an indicator of personal contrition. Demonstrate to me how the next oft-maligned minority will be spared this humiliating treatment. I want to know that this change in trajectory wasn’t for reasons far shallower and self-interested, and that they won’t reverse it when the sociopolitical winds change.
I will nonetheless donate blood. The blood supply is dwindling. I will also remain bitter; that’s to be expected when the entity collecting it have stigmatized me and those I love for nearly the entirety of my adult life.
Last night, the biggest solar storm in decades hit the planet, resulting in the aurora borealis being visible in Ottawa. I went out to the North Frontenac Dark Sky Preserve to get away from the light pollution.
These are some of the photos I took:
