Got Blood to Give: Anti-Black Homophobia in Blood Donation

Our blood has stories to tell, and we are told stories about blood. Globally, blood is a story that is built -- whose blood counts, whose blood spills and whose blood is of use. The history of blood donation practices in Canada speaks to the larger blood story of anti-Black racism, evident since the country’s founding. Through storytelling, theorizing and discourse analysis, Got Blood to Give examines how anti-Black homophobic nation-building policies became enshrined in blood donation systems.

OmiSoore H. Dryden, a Black queer femme academic and the foremost scholar on Canadian blood donation practices, examines contaminated blood crises in the 1980s and 1990s, Canadian Red Cross Society, and Canadian Blood Services. She contextualizes contemporary homonationalisms, medical anti-Black racism, homophobia and transphobia in blood-related practices, connecting blood stories with health disparities affecting Black and Black queer populations.

From a BlaQueer disasporic theoretical lens, this book uses narrative as method to show how healthcare systems continue to propagate anti-Blackness.

Dr. OmiSoore H. Dryden, a Black queer femme, is the James R Johnston Endowed Research Chair in Black Canadian Studies, Faculty of Medicine, and interim director of Black Studies Research Institute at Dalhousie University. She is the co-founder and co-lead of the Black Health Education Collaborative and engages in interdisciplinary scholarship and research that focuses on Black LGBTQI communities, blood donation systems in Canada, anti-Black racism in healthcare, medical education and Black health curricular content development. She is the co-editor of Disrupting Queer Inclusion: Canadian Homonationalisms and the Politics of Belonging and co-author of ＂Time to Dismantle Systemic anti-Black Racism in Medicine in Canada.＂ She is an associate scientist with the Maritime SPOR SUPPORT Unit, a member of the Black Feminist Health Science Studies International Collective, a past co-president of the Black Canadian Studies Association and a founding member of the National Coalition Confronting Anti-Black Racism in Donor Protocols.