Aziz M. says becoming a sperm donor is the best decision he ever made โ and he hopes other gay and bisexual men will now have the opportunity to do the same.
The Toronto man, whose full name is protected by a publication man, was the plaintiff in a three-year legal battle with Health Canada over what he believes were discriminatory criteria for sperm donation.
But on Thursday, the agency said it will drop questions about sexual behaviour from its screening process, eliminating a barrier that precluded many gay and bisexual men from donating.
“I’m very happy,” Aziz told As It Happens guest host Loren McInnis. “I’m hoping a lot more queer men would go and donate.”
Starting this fall, Health Canada says it will no longer ask potential sperm donors whether they have recently had anal sex with a new partner or one of multiple partners.
As It Happens6:36Health Canada drops barriers to sperm donation by gay and bisexual men 3 years into legal challenge
Aziz M. was the plaintiff at the heart of a three-year legal battle with Health Canada over what he believes were discriminatory criteria for sperm donation.ย Now, that battle is over, and Aziz is celebrating. He spoke to As It Happens guest host Loren McInnis.
All donors, the department says, will still be rigorously screened for infectious diseases, such as HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C.
Health Canada says it made the changes after consulting with stakeholders in the field of assisted reproduction.
“The Government of Canada is committed to making sure that sperm and ova donation policies are safe, non-discriminatory and based on scientific evidence,” the agency said in an emailed statement.
Policy based on stereotypes, advocates say
Egale Canada, a 2SLGBTQ+ charity that was going to act as an intervener in the case, welcomed the news.
“This case presented an important opportunity to examine long-standing assumptions about sexual orientation in relation to HIV, and how these policies must be grounded and assessed through the lens of Charter rights,” Bennett Jensen, Egale’s legal director, said in an emailed statement.
When Aziz started donating sperm in 2014, he wasn’t yet out and sexually active as a gay man.
About 10 years ago, a family used his donated sperm to conceive a child.ย That child, he says, has been a part of his life ever since.
“I had a wonderful experience … and it has enriched my life immensely,” he said. “I then told other people, especially queer friends, about this experience and encouraged them, you know, to give it a shot.”
But it turns out that many of them couldn’t.
Before 2024, Health Canada explicitly banned sperm donations by men who have had sex with men within the three months prior to donation, citing an increased risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.
“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,” Aziz said.
“It felt like it was a group judgment. Like, anybody from that group is having, you know, risky sexual behaviour and they’re diseased.”
In 2023, he launched a constitutional challenge against the policy. In response, Health Canada ended its blanket ban on donations from men who have sex with men in 2024, then tweaked its screening language to make questions about anal sex gender neutral.
Aziz and his lawyers welcomed the move but decided to forge ahead with their case anyway.
“It actually switched an explicit discrimination to an implicit one,” Aziz said. “The same group of people are more likely to be disqualified.”
Experts say testing and quarantine are enough
Receptive anal intercourse has been identified as a risk factor for many sexually transmitted infections. But three medical experts who submitted affidavits in the case say Health Canada’s physical screening process is thorough enough to weed out any dangers.
Every sperm donation is tested for infectious disease when first collected, quarantined for a minimum of 180 days and then tested again before release.
“Current HIV testing methods are highly sensitive and accurate, such that there is effectively no residual risk associated with current testing methods,” Dr. Mona Loutfy, a Toronto-based infectious disease physician, wrote in an affidavit for the case.ย
Emily McIntosh, executive director of the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society, agrees. Her organization, which represents scientists and health-care workers in the field of assisted reproduction, was also scheduled to be an intervener in the case.
“This is quite rigorous, and asking somebody about their behaviour is in fact moot,” she said. “Not to mention the fact that that’s assuming everybody is answering all questions fully truthfully or to the best of their knowledge.”
Research published last year in the journal Transfusion found questionnaires are an ineffective way to screen blood donors, as participants often choose not to disclose key information.
More sperm donors needed
McIntosh says the new rules are good news for people trying to start families through assisted reproduction. Because it’s illegal in Canada to pay for donated sperm and ova, she says there aren’t enough sperm donors to meet the need.
Aziz says he hopes the new rules will encourage more gay and bisexual men to donate.
“For a lot of queer people, it’s very hard to have to build our own family and to have our own kids. It takes a lot of money and a lot of effort,” he said. “This is a way to contribute and enrich our lives at the same time.”
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