The government agency Health Canada announced last week it has ended its restrictions on gay and bisexual sperm donors.
Aziz M. told CBC he has “had a wonderful experience” as a sperm donor, with one child conceived with his sperm remaining an active part of his life. But when he encouraged other queer friends to donate, he realized it wasn’t an option for many.
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Health Canada’s policy until 2024 banned men from donating sperm if they had sex with other men within three months due to an alleged higher risk of HIV and other STIs. Aziz challenged the policy in 2023.
“It kind of reminded me of all the prejudice that we gay and bisexual men get in life and all the negative opinions that society often holds against us,” he explained. “It felt like it was a group judgment. Like, anybody from that group is having, you know, risky sexual behavior and they’re diseased.”
He decided to continue the suit even after Health Canada changed the language from banning men who have sex with men to anyone engaging in anal sex. Aziz felt that was merely transferring “an explicit discrimination to an implicit one” since “the same group of people are more likely to be disqualified.”
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Affidavits submitted by three medical experts explained that the process in place to screen sperm for infectious disease was sufficient without needing to ban anyone for sexual behavior, CBC reported.
Dr. Mona Loutfy, who specializes in infectious diseases, reportedly wrote that HIV testing methods today “are highly sensitive and accurate, such that there is effectively no residual risk associated with current testing methods.”
And now, before Aziz presented the case in court, Health Canada announced it will completely eliminate the sexual behavior questions targeting gay and bisexual men from the donor screening process. In a statement, it said, “The Government of Canada is committed to making sure that sperm and ova donation policies are safe, non-discriminatory and based on scientific evidence.”
Bennett Jensen, legal director for the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Egale Canada, called the case “an important opportunity to examine long-standing assumptions about sexual orientation in relation to HIV.”
Jensen also told CTV News he is “filled with so much gratitude towards Aziz for tirelessly fighting this issue and not being willing to give up. It’s incredibly burdensome to be handling litigation, especially with respect to something that’s so personal. And I think that he’s done just an incredible public service for Canadians.”
Gregory Ko, a lawyer on the case, called the move “an important and precedent-setting step in ending decades-long discrimination against gay and bisexual men.”
Another lawyer, Frank Nasca, said the change “really took a massive push from Aziz and from others to get the government to really look closely.”
Canada does not allow payment for sperm donation and so suffers from a lack of supply. Emily McIntosh, executive director of the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society, told CBC eliminating the unnecessary rules could help.
Aziz is excited about the update and hopes more queer men will donate as a result. “For a lot of queer people, it’s very hard to have to build our own family and to have our own kids,” he told CBC. “It takes a lot of money and a lot of effort. This is a way to contribute and enrich our lives at the same time.”
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