Twitter Ends Blood Drive Over Gay Ban

Twitter has ended its participation in blood drives after a gay man was rejected from donating at their San Francisco headquarters. International Business Times reports:

“These are the only policies that the FDA has based on a person’s identification and not any type of risky behavior that they’re engaged in,” said Jim Halloran, Twitter’s Associate Manager of Sales Operations and President of TwitterOpen, Twitter’s LGBT employee resource group. “Twitter took a very bold stance.”

“We made the choice to take a company stand against some of our employees being turned away from donating blood and will channel our efforts into education about this issue until this unnecessary and discriminatory policy is changed,” said Brian “Skip” Schipper, Twitter’s Vice President of Human Resources and the Executive Sponsor of TwitterOpen.

Twitter shared the news after being named one of the “Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality” by the Human Rights Campaign on Wednesday, an indication that could help the company in recruiting talented candidates from the LGBT community. Besides boycotting blood drives, Twitter has also filed a public comment with the FDA. TwitterOpen has also promoted a petition to “stop discriminating and screen male blood donors equally.”

The FDA recently proposed limiting the ban to men who have had sex with men within the previous 12 months. That proposal has not yet been approved.