Councillor donates blood after gay blood ban is scrapped

LOCAL councillor Jethro Leferve made his way to the Musgrave Blood Donor Centre for the first time on Mandela Day as part of his 67 minutes of kindness.

His blood donation was made possible after the SNBS lifted its ban on donations from the gay community in May this year.

“There was a moratorium on gay people not being able to donate blood which I found totally unreasonable and prejudiced because there was no proper explanation. Many in the gay community have a lot of animosity towards SANBS because they felt their blood was not good enough and now that the SANBS really needs blood, they lift the ban.”

The councillor confessed that he had also felt some animosity and had not thought of giving blood until closer to Mandela Day. –

“I only thought about doing it (donating) in light of Nelson Mandela being such a symbol for forgiveness. I decided to let it go and donate blood for my personal 67 minutes and thought it would be a good thing to do as a homosexual leader. We need to forgive people for their ignorance,” he said.

Leferve, who is also terrified of needles said he was quite nervous about the “huge” needle that was used but was pleasantly distracted by the “friendly, chatty staff” that made his first blood doantion a “great experience.”

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“It literally took 15 minutes and the sister said, “My God, your blood pumps fast!” before processing the paper work and ensuring I was booked to return in September and I will, I'll donate regularly,” he added with a chuckle.

Since spreading the word of his first blood donation on Facebook, Leferve said he had many friends and others in the LGBT community get in touch with him to ask about the experience as they were also rethinking their attitude towards SANBS. “We need to move past these issues. We can't live in the past but need to move forward. I would hate for someone in my family to one day be in an accident and need blood and there is a shortage, so I encourage people to donate. To the gay community, forget about the hurt and feeling of inadequacy imposed by the ban based on sexual orientation,” he said.

Leferve said he had also wanted to publicly donate and made the decision in the face of all “the homophobia which was once again rearing its ugly head in Africa.” “I just hope the ANC are not going to follow countries like Uganda where anti-human rights laws are being passed based on sexual orientation, especially when looking at the behaviour of ANC members in council ahead of the Gay Pride event two weeks ago,” he added.