The top administrative court in Greece, the Council of State, has overturned a 2022 decision by the nation’s Health Ministry that lifted the ban on gay men donating blood. As such, the ban – which Greece originally instated during the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s – has effectively been reinstated.

The court ruled that the ministry did not provide scientific evidence to support its decision and did not follow the recommendations of two health advisory panels that suggested deferral periods for high-risk donors, reported Athens-based publication Kathimerini.

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Greece is often considered to be at the forefront of progressive legislation moving LGBTQ+ rights, but lately it seems to be making moves to the contrary. In addition to reinstating the donation ban, the country’s justice minister recently said that proposed changes to Greece’s civil code will clarify that only women will be able to start a family through surrogacy, preventing single straight men, single gay men, and same-sex male couples from benefiting from the procedure.

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“We are now clarifying unequivocally that the concept of inability to carry a pregnancy does not refer to an inability arising from one’s gender,” Giorgos Floridis told reporters.

Nevertheless, Greece legalized same-sex marriage last year despite fierce opposition from the Orthodox Church, becoming the first Orthodox Christian-majority country to do so. In 2022, Greece also banned conversion therapy and passed a law banning “sex-normalizing” surgeries for babies born intersex.

In 2017, the Greek Parliament passed the Legal Gender Recognition Law, which allows transgender people to change their legal gender without needing prior medical interventions or tests.

The United States loosened its own blood donation restrictions in 2023, mostly benefiting monogamous men who aren’t taking any HIV treatment or HIV prevention medications.

The new FDA guidelines focus on specific criteria rather than anyone’s gender or the genders of their partners. They require a three-month pre-donation celibacy period for anyone who has had sex with a new sexual partner, more than one sexual partner, or anal sex, as well as for anyone taking pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medication. A two-year abstinence period is required for users of injectable PrEP, which can mask the presence of HIV in blood.

The policies are meant to reduce the likelihood of donations by people with new or recent HIV infections, the FDA said. Blood donation organizations test all donated blood for transfusion-transmitted infections, including HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C.

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