At 55, Sharif D Rangnekar stands at the intersection of several worlds – a journalist turned corporate professional, activist, and author of two books. Yet, it is his identity as a gay man and his role as a “facilitator” for the queer community that have defined his life narrative.
Rangnekar made headlines last month for challenging clauses 12 and 51 of the National Blood Transfusion Council and the National Aids Control Organisation’s 2017 guidelines that “permanently defer” transgenders, gay men, and women sex workers from donating blood in India for purportedly being at high risk of HIV infection. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court tagged his petition along with another, by activist Thangjam Santa Singh, issued notices to the centre, and posted the matter for further hearing on August 13.
“This kind of bias makes it difficult to donate blood even within the community,” says Rangnekar, calling the guidelines “discriminatory” and violative of Article 17, saying that it treats the three groups as “untouchables”, driving the LGBTQ people to “hide their sexual orientation” and “distrust the medical system”.
But long before he could pick this legal fight, Rangnekar had battled anxiety and depression in his journey to live freely as a gay man.
India’s first pride parade, and coming out of the closet
Rangnekar had lost his father when he was just 15, and lived in Bombay and Kolkata, before moving to Delhi, where he lives with his mother. He told Newslaundry that he first “came out of closet” to his friends and eventually his mother, when she was scouring a newspaper’s marriage supplement to look for a match for him in 1999. At the time, he was already working in Delhi, and India had witnessed its first pride parade in Kolkata.
On what motivated him to file the petition, Rangnekar said he had immense support from his family and close friends and even has a “maternal uncle and aunt, who consider me as their son. But what am I supposed to tell them if they ever need blood and I am not allowed to donate?”
Rangnekar had left his journalism job in 2004 to venture into public relations. But 12 years later, he was “desperately seeking peace and freedom”. He said that by 2013, a majority of his colleagues and acquaintances knew about him being gay but “owing to the nature of the job, his expression of his views had to be restricted” and so he quit with no back-up plans.
He eventually joined a corporate firm as a PR consultant. He headed the PR Industry Association for half a decade, and his experience came handy to work on the Rainbow Literature Fest in 2019 – whose fourth edition will be held this year, with breaks in 2021 and 2022. The event was aimed at facilitating conversations around queers and inclusiveness.
In 2019, after Section 377 was struck down, he had realised that he had spent over 50 years of his life “under a law which considered him illegal”. This was the inspiration for his first book ‘Straight to normal’, which came out in 2019. His second book ‘Queersapien’, published in 2022, is about social justice, inspired by his Khatri mother’s struggles to adjust in his father’s savarna household.
The second petitioner: Author, ‘first’ trans owner of a Manipur salon
Imphal-based Thangjam Santa Singh’s petition was filed three years before Rangnekar’s in the Supreme Court. In her petition filed on February 15, 2021, Santa said the “discriminatory nature” of the guidelines violates Article 14, 15, and 21 of the constitution.
“This blood ban treats us as untouchables,” said Santa, in her late 40s, who identifies as a Manipuri Nupi Manbi – a term for transgender women in Manipuri language.
She “pioneered” as the “first person” from the trans community to set up her own beauty parlour in Manipur in late 1990s. She currently serves as the secretary of the All Manipur Nupi Maanbi Association and also volunteers with Delhi-based Solidarity and Action Against The HIV Infection in India.
“But life was never too easy,” Santa told Newslaundry, as she recalled being compelled to leave her parent’s home in 2014, after they did not accept her marriage to her then partner. Assigned male at birth, she underwent sex reassignment surgery in 2016 and subsequently adopted her deceased sister’s son.
Santa, now a mother to her 26-year-old adopted son, said, “I opened my parlour because I was driven to be financially independent. All of the insults, bullying, and disrespect that I encountered and my involvement with SAATHI made me the person I am today. I was all about celebrating life earlier, as much as I do it today.”
Santa began her journey as an activist in the early 2000s, when she joined human rights activist Babloo Loitongbam in protests against the AFSPA. By 2010, she got actively involved in transgender activism and AMANA after attending the Universal Periodic Review, a UN initiative on human rights. She told Newslaundry that transgender issues were shadowed as Manipur was struggling with violence in the early 2000s, similar to the violence now. “It is then I realised that our community needs to mobilise.”
She has also written a book, titled ‘The Yellow Sparrow Memoir of a Transgender’ and is currently co-writing her second novel with her partner Chon Nongmaithem, who is a transgender man.
Blood donation guidelines
Activists told Newslaundry that before the NBTC guidelines officially ordered to “permanently defer” transgenders, gay men, and women sex workers from donating blood in 2017, there was an unofficial ban since the 1980s HIV epidemic.
This is despite the government’s mandate that blood banks test all donated blood for HIV reactivity.
The ministry of health and family welfare said in a 2023 affidavit in the Supreme Court that “even the most advanced testing technologies can never be completely foolproof and it is most critical to limit the pool of blood donors to individuals who present the least risk of Transfusion Transmitted Infections as per available scientific evidence”.
The affidavit referred to the 2021 annual report of the department of health and family welfare, which stated that “the HIV prevalence among Hijras/Transgenders (H/TG), men who have sex with men (MSM) and female sex workers (FSW) is 6 to 13 times higher than adult HIV prevalence”.
It also referred to purported restrictions in different countries, claiming that “in most European countries, sexually active MSM are permanently deferred from donating blood.”
The rules vary across the globe.
As per ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Map-2024, “an independent, international non-governmental umbrella organisation uniting over 750 LGBTI organisations from 54 countries across Europe and Central Asia”, there are 24 countries in Europe where there are no administrative or legislative restrictions or ban on blood donation based on gender identity or sexual orientation.
But it was only in 2022 that Greece lifted a decades-old ban on donations by gay and bisexual men while France also scrapped norms that laid out a one-year waiting period for those who had gay sex.
In Switzerland, gay men were barred from giving blood until 2017, when it changed to a one-year deferral period, before a four-month deferral period last year.
In the US, gay and transgender men were completely prohibited from donating blood for decades due to the AIDS crisis. This changed in 2015, with a deferral period of one year – men who had sex with men within one year were not allowed to donate. Last year, this waiting period was reduced to three months.
Small teams can do great things. All it takes is a subscription. Subscribe now and power Newslaundry’s work.
Newslaundry is a reader-supported, ad-free, independent news outlet based out of New Delhi. Support their journalism, here.
