Please take our survey for the Fight for the Right To Party Campaign about your experiences in gay and non-gay clubs..Will only take a few minutes.

righttoparty.lgbtq.co.uk

To read our motion submitted to NUS LGBT Conference see below:

Taken from BBC news website

WHO, WHAT, WHY?

The Magazine answers…

A lifetime ban on gay and bisexual men from giving blood is under review, following calls from campaigners that the policy is unfair and misplaced. So which groups are prevented from donating on grounds of sexual behaviour?

The public is often being urged to give blood, to help those that need it, but the adverts are not directed at those deemed too high-risk to donate.

Blood services expect a shortfall in supply this winter

People are banned from giving blood for a variety of health reasons such as having had a blood transfusion after 1980 or having a family member with CJD. But rules which govern giving blood simply because of who you have sex with are not universally accepted by those who are banned.

A man is prevented from giving blood if he has ever had sex with another man, even if that happened decades ago and he has recently tested negative for sexually transmitted diseases like HIV.

A woman who once worked as a prostitute is also banned for life from donating, while anyone who has had sex with anyone who has been sexually active in parts of the world with high HIV rates, like sub-Saharan Africa, cannot donate for 12 months.

A review is under way to look again at these rules. The government’s advisory committee on the safety of blood, tissues and organs (SaBTO) is holding a public consultation meeting in London as part of that process.

According to those rules, the following groups are among those that have a lifetime ban on giving blood:

• any man who has had sex with another man, even safe sex using a condom
• anyone who has ever worked as a prostitute
• anyone who has injected themselves with drugs – even once
• anyone who has ever had syphilis, human T-lymphotropic virus, hepatitis B or C

Potential donors are also banned for 12 months after having had sex with:

• a man who has had sex with another man (if you’re a female)
• a prostitute
• anyone who has ever injected themselves with drugs
• anyone with haemophilia or a related blood clotting disorder, who has received clotting factor concentrates
• anyone of any race who has been sexually active in parts of the world where Aids/HIV is very common

And there are shorter term restrictions on people who have visited malarial areas.

The National Blood Service for England and North Wales says it has to exclude groups known to present a particularly high risk of blood-borne viruses, to reduce the risk of infected blood entering the blood supply.

Although all blood is screened, a small number of infected donations may be missed because there is a period of time between getting the infection and the test showing a positive result, its guidelines say.

Condoms reduce the risk of infection but don’t eliminate it, they say, and men who have sex with men account for 63% of HIV diagnoses where the infection was likely to have been acquired in the UK. The risk of HIV-infected blood entering the blood supply would increase five-fold if the ban was lifted.

WHO, WHAT, WHY?

A regular part of the BBC News Magazine, Who, What, Why? aims to answer some of the questions behind the headlines

But gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell says a government that opposes homophobic discrimination cannot possibly uphold the ban.

“It is based on the stererotyped, irrational, bigoted and unscientific assumption that any man who has had oral or anal sex with another man – even just once 40 years ago with a condom – is high risk for HIV. This is nonsense.

“The truth is that most gay and bisexual men do not have HIV and will never have HIV. Their blood is safe.”

A spokesman for the Department of Health said the committee would publish its findings in 2010.

Wow so in case you live in a bubble, you probably already know that last night Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party was a guest on BBC’s Question time. Myself and a few others braved the rain to protest outside the BBC in town.

I won’t say much on the program but not unexpectedly he was spouting his usual homophobic and racist b.s. I’d recommend that you all watch it for yourselves which you can do here http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00nft24/Question_Time_22_10_2009/

If you want to register a complaint to the BBC you can do so here: Complain to the BBC by phoning 03700 100 222 or online at http://bit.ly/bbccomplaints[1]

To get involved in the anti-fascist campaign check out:

http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/index.php/content/home/suit
www.uaf.org.uk/

The second event of the term is an inter-university women’s night out to Chic’s Little Miss Mondays. We’re hoping that it’ll be a great chance to both introduce girls from different unis to Birmingham’s lesbian scene and also to each other. It should be a really great laugh for all and a nice change for us girlies to have our own night out. So make sures you come along.

The annual LGBTQ Welcome Week Bar Crawl (or fresher’s barcrawl as most people call it) is one of the most notorious nights on our calendar and certainly not to be missed.

Take a break from your Fresher’s Fest events (if it clashes – sell your ticket… guaranteed profit) to come and make friends as your LGBTQ committee manically tries to introduce everyone to everyone else (so don’t worry about coming on your own) before introducing you to Birmingham’s famous gay village.

We’ll head into town from 8pm onwards and whilst we obviously encourage responsible drinking, it’s usually a case of ‘last one standing’… because you’ll obviously be all too exhausted from the dancing to stand anymore…

Birmingham’s gay village has quite a few venues, so we’ll only realistically be able to go to a few on the barcrawl -but don’t worry over the first few weeks of term, we’ll try and introduce you to them all. For this first barcrawl, we’ll be hitting the Angels, Route 2, the Fox and the Nightingale club. Keep your eyes peeled on the calendar for upcoming events where we’ll hit the other venues…

TICKET INFO:
Whilst we like to keep all as many as our events free as possible, we will be selling tickets for this event at a measly £5. Ticket price is to cover entrance into Nightingales who charge an entry fee on Thursdays, and also your travel into town. (Bargain.)

If this doesn’t sound like your thing… not to worry. We put on a wide range of events so there’ll be something for everyone.