• Source: San Diego Blood Sisters

The San Diego Blood Sisters were a group who sponsored and organized lesbian blood drives during the AIDS epidemic. Established by members of the Women's Caucus of the San Diego Democratic Club, the Blood Sisters sought to gather an adequate blood supply for AIDS patients, primarily gay men who often required many transfusions due to anemia. The organization's history ranges from their formation in 1983 to their slow dissolution after President Ronald Reagan's eventual intervention in the epidemic. The Blood Sisters' efforts were often contested, disrupted, or cancelled by those concerned for the safety of the blood supply.




Formation


The San Diego Blood Sisters organized recurring blood drives in response to America's ban on gay men's blood donations in 1983. This ban was put in place despite the country's blood shortage caused by the epidemic. While gay men were barred from donating blood, lesbians remained free to have their donations collected. The Blood Sisters were thus able to counter the ban by holding blood drives, which supplied HIV patients with the transfusions required to treat anemia caused by HIV infection.
The group held their first blood drive on July 16, 1983. It was organized by the group's founding members, Wendy Sue Biegeleisen, Nicolette Ibarra, and Barbara Vick, and took place at the San Diego Blood Bank in Hillcrest, where nearly 200 women arrived to offer their blood, resulting in roughly 130 donations.




Backlash






= National Gay Task Force 1984 Award

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The Blood Sisters received an award from the National Gay Task Force in spring 1984. This saw backlash from conservative groups who called for Edward Brandt, the Assistant Security of Health, to be dismissed if he attended the award ceremony.




= Orange County Blood Drive

=
On December 27, 1984, a blood drive organized by the Blood Sisters scheduled for December 30, 1984 was cancelled out of fear of public backlash. Dr. Benjamin Spindler, the Orange County Red Cross chapter medical director, cancelled the drive after seeing it in a newspaper and receiving a complaint. The Red Cross believed that if a blood drive was being held at a gay community center, the public would believe donations were being taken from gay men. This decision was endorsed by the greater Los Angeles-Orange County region chapter head who claimed that the scheduling of the blood drive was a mistake made by an "inexperienced" employee.
This was not the first time lesbian blood drives had faced backlash in Los Angeles, as two previous drives had been refused bloodmobiles by the Red Cross due to the fact that they were being held at the gay community center.




Dissolution and legacy


The San Diego Blood Sisters operated for four years, after which their organized efforts grew minimal. Members of the group mostly cite President Ronald Reagan's eventual involvement in the AIDS crisis as the reason for the dissolution of the Blood Sisters.
In addition to the medical community's concern over the public's reaction to lesbian-sponsored blood drives, increasing advocacy for AIDS patients lessened the need for the Blood Sisters’ drives. Starting in 1983 and continuing until 1992, the Blood Sisters hosted twelve blood drives, and in the following year, 1993, the organization was shut down.
After another year passed, in 1994, an initiative called the San Diego Lesbian Community Blood Drive was unable to recommence the movement begun by the Blood Sisters. The San Diego Blood Bank, which at one time supported the Blood Sisters, was the main halting force behind the failure of this updated movement; the blood bank took issue with the new organization's plans to use the word lesbian in their advertising. Many of the members of the San Diego Lesbian Community Blood Drive, themselves former Blood Sisters, sought legal intervention. The newly formed group attempted to work with the San Diego Human rights Commission to undercut the legal rejection of their drive, but their claim gained no ground.
In 1996, Delores Jacobs, who was director of the San Diego LGBT Community Center, published an opinion piece next to an anonymous article in San Diego Gay News. Both pieces advocated for all members of the LBGT community to refuse to donate blood until the San Diego Blood Bank relinquished its acceptance of the FDA's ban on blood donation by men who have sex with men. Despite efforts to recommence the work of the Blood Sisters, the two San Diego Gay News articles led local lesbian activism from group-sponsored blood drives toward outright refusal to donate blood on even an individual level.




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