Redheads Need Not Apply

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Cryos in Denmark claims (here) to have “the world’s largest selection of sperm donors.” According to this report in the (UK) Telegraph, Cryos no longer accepts donations from redheaded sperm donors.

“There are too many redheads in relation to demand,” he told told Danish newspaper Ekstrabladet. “I do not think you chose a redhead, unless the partner – for example, the sterile male – has red hair, or because the lone woman has a preference for redheads. And that’s perhaps not so many, especially in the latter case.”

Mr Schou said the only reliable demand for sperm from redheaded donors from Ireland, where he said it sold “like hot cakes”.

Cryos’s stores have now reached their peak capacity of 70 litres of semen, and Mr Schou has a waiting list of 600 donors.

He said sperm from donors with brown hair and brown eyes was particularly in demand, because of the bank’s large customer base in Spain, Italy and Greece.

Full story here.

I have not come across any data about a similar limited (or increased) demand for redheaded egg donors, but presumably the same “anti-ginger” sentiment would impact female gamete providers.

I’d venture to say that most whites do not contemplate whiteness and racial privilege as part of their everyday experience.  So I’d be curious to learn I wonder if the 600 male redheads on the waiting list of donors subjectively perceive themselves to be subject to discrimination.

-Bridget Crawford

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