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I told a kid a riddle my dad told me when I was 7. His answer proves how far we've come.

This classic riddle takes on new meaning as our world changes for the better.




When I was 7, my dad told me a riddle.

"A man and his son are driving in their car when they are hit by a tractor-trailer.

Photo via iStock.

(We were driving at the time, so of course this was the riddle he decided to tell.)

The father dies instantly.

The son is badly injured. Paramedics rush him to the hospital.

Photo via iStock.

As he is being wheeled into the operating room, the surgeon takes one look the boy and says:

'I can't operate on him. He's my son.'

How is that possible?!"

Without missing a beat, I answered:

"The doctor is his mom!"

Photo via iStock.

My dad first heard the riddle when he was a child in the '60s.

Back then, most women didn't work outside of the home.

Few of those who did had college degrees, much less professional degrees.

Female doctors were few and far between.

Back then, it was a hard riddle. A very hard riddle.

By 1993, when I first heard it, the notion that women could be highly skilled, highly trained professionals wasn't so absurd.

To me, it was normal.

I knew women who were lawyers. Bankers. Politicians. My own doctor was a woman.

To be sure, women still faced challenges and discrimination in the workplace. And even 20 years later, they still do.

But at its core, the riddle is about how a family can work. And that had changed. Long-overdue progress had rendered the big, sexist assumption that underpinned the whole thing moot.

A very hard riddle was suddenly not a riddle at all.

I never forgot it.

Now, I'm 30 — almost as old as my dad was he first told me that riddle.

My dad at 30 (left) and me at 30. Photos by Eric March/Upworthy and Mary March, used with permission.

I don't have kids, but I mentor a child through a volunteer program.

Once a week, we get together and hang out for an hour. We play ping pong, do science experiments, and write songs. Neither of us like to go outside.

It's a good match.

One day, we decided to try to stump each other with riddles.

He rattled off about five or six.

I could only remember one: The one about the man, his son, and the surgeon.

Photo via iStock.

I thought it would be silly to tell it.

I was sure that, if it was easy in 1993, it would be even easier in 2014. Kind of ridiculous, even.

But a part of me was curious.

It had been 21 years — almost as long as it had been between when my dad first heard the riddle and when he shared it with me.

Maybe it wouldn't be so easy.

Maybe I was missing something obvious, making my own flawed assumptions about how a family could work.

Maybe the world had changed in ways that would be second nature to a 13-year-old but not to me.

So I began:

"A man and his son are driving in their car, when they are hit by a tractor-trailer. The father dies instantly. The son is badly injured and is rushed to the hospital by paramedics. As he is being wheeled into the operating room, the surgeon takes one look at the boy and says:

'I can't operate on him. He's my son.'

How is that possible?!"

Without missing a beat, he answered: "it's his other dad"

Photo via iStock.

Times change. Progress isn't perfect. But no matter what shape a family takes, at the end of the day, #LoveWins.


This article was written by Eric March and originally appeared on 06.21.16

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Heroes

North Korea's first openly-gay defector is now engaged to his American boyfriend

via Vietnam Mobiography / Flickr

Jang Yeong-Jin, 62, has had a perilous journey to find true love. Growing up in totalitarian North Korea, he had no idea there was any such thing as being homosexual. He thought that he had a medical problem because he wasn't attracted to his wife.

He got married at 27 and when it came time to consummate the relationship he felt terribly uncomfortable.

"I couldn't lay a finger on my wife," he told the BBC. "I went to so many hospitals in North Korea because we thought that I had some sort of physical problem."

It never occurred to Jang or his family that there could be any other reason for his lack of interest in women. "There is no concept of homosexuality in North Korea," he says. North Koreans live a communal existence so men frequently hold hands, but it's just assumed that it's a sign of close friendship.

"North Korea is a totalitarian society — we have lots of communal life so it's normal for us," Jang said.

Kim Seok-Hyang, professor of North Korean studies at Ewha Women's University in South Korea, has interviewed dozens of defectors and says the concept of homosexuality is unheard of in the totalitarian state.

"When I asked them about homosexuality, they didn't catch on quickly so I had to explain it to every single person," Kim told the BBC.

Jang wanted to file for divorce so that he and his unhappy wife could both live freely, but given the country's draconian family laws, he realized it would be best if he defected to South Korea. In 1996, Jang braved crossing the border, but when he couldn't make it from China to South Korea, he returned home.

The next year, Jang escaped to South Korea by crawling through the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), making him one of the few people to successfully do so.

In 1998, he was reading an article about his defection in a South Korean newspaper when he came across a review of an American film about two gay men that featured a photo of them kissing.

"When I saw that, I knew right away that I was this kind of person. That's why I couldn't like women," he said. After the revelation, he became a regular in Seoul's gay bars. Eventually, he met a flight attendant and the two started a relationship. Unfortunately, the man conned Jang out of his life savings.

What it's like to be gay in North Korea?www.youtube.com

This experience soured Jang on relationships, but in 2020, he met a Korean man living in America on a dating app. After four months, he flew to America to meet him but when he first saw him at the airport he was unimpressed by his casual, American style of dress. "Seeing how he dressed, I assumed he was an ill-mannered and blunt man," Jang says.

But soon, after many long picnics and bottles of wine, he began to grow on Jang.

"The more I got to know this man, the more I could see that he had a very good character. Although he is eight years younger than me, he is the kind of person who likes to care for others first," he said.

After two months he proposed to Jang.

The couple hopes to marry later this year.

"I always felt fearful, sad, and lonely when I lived alone. I am a very introverted and sensitive person, but he is an optimistic man, so we are good for each other," he said.

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A new poll shows a historic increase in the number of Americans who identify as LGBTQ

via Pexels

A new Gallup poll found a significant increase in the number of Americans who identify as LGBT since the last time it conducted a similar poll in 2017.

The poll found that 5.6% of U.S. adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. That's a large increase from the 2017 poll that had the number at 4.5%.

"More than half of LGBT adults (54.6%) identify as bisexual. About a quarter (24.5%) say they are gay, with 11.7% identifying as lesbian and 11.3% as transgender. An additional 3.3% volunteer another non-heterosexual preference or term to describe their sexual orientation, such as queer or same-gender-loving," the poll says.


via Gallup


A big reason for the increase is the number of people in Generation Z who identify as LGBT. About one in six adult members of Generation Z (those aged 18 to 23 in 2020) consider themselves to be something other than exclusively heterosexual.

LGBT identification is lower in subsequent older generations, including 2% or less of Americans born before 1965 (aged 56 and older in 2020).

Percentage of Americans who identify as LGBT by generation:

Generation Z (born 1997-2002) 15.9

Millennials (born 1981-1996) 9.1

Generation X (born 1965-1980) 3.8

Baby boomers (born 1946-1964) 2.0

Traditionalists (born before 1946) 1.3

Seventy-two percent of Gen Zers who identify as LGBT say they are bisexual. This is a large increase over Millenials, of which about 50% of those who are LGBT identify as bisexual. In older generations, expressed bisexual preference is not significantly more common than expressed gay or lesbian preference.

Gallup editor Jeffrey Jones says these new poll numbers show that more Americans are feeling safe to express their LGBTQ+ identities.

"Younger people are growing up in an environment where being gay, lesbian, or bisexual is not as taboo as it was in the past," Jones told NBC News. "So they may just feel more comfortable telling an interviewer in a telephone survey how they describe themselves. In the past, people would maybe be more reluctant."

The increasing number of Americans who identify as LGBT shows the country is becoming a more tolerant place where people are freer to express their true selves.

It also shows that when children are raised in a more tolerant society, they grow up to be adults who are more likely to be themselves. The youngest members of Gen Z were entering their teenage years when gay marriage became legal.

Living in a world where LGBT people had greater freedoms and protections under the law has to have made a positive impact on their own journey of self-discovery and acceptance.

One wonders what the numbers would look like if older generations grew up in the same environment?

This new data from Gallup provides an even stronger reason for Congress to pass the Equality Act. With a growing number of people who identify as LGBT, the country needs stronger legislation to ban discrimination against people based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Equality Act would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to explicitly prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Democratic-controlled House is expected to vote on the bill this week and it has the support of President Biden.

"I urge Congress to swiftly pass this historic legislation," Biden wrote in a statement. "Every person should be treated with dignity and respect, and this bill represents a critical step toward ensuring that America lives up to our foundational values of equality and freedom for all."

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After a YouTuber catcalled his teenage daughter, comedian Skyler Stone called out his ignorance.

"Stop catcalling after women. Grow the f*** up."

via KEEM / Twitter

Catcalling should stop being explained away as a compliment or some type of innocuous flirtation. It's a serious problem that makes women and members of the LGBT community feel unsafe in public spaces.

Catcalling can also lead to more dangerous street harassment such as inappropriate touching or sexual assault.

Actor-comedian Sklyer Stone is getting love on social media for how he responded to a disgusting YouTuber catcalling his 15-year-old daughter on the street in Los Angeles.

Stone is a stand-up comedian who has appeared on "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," "2 Broke Girls", and starred in his own Comedy Central series, "Con" in 2005.

YouTuber King Aladdin was live-streaming himself with a selfie stick on Cahuenga Boulevard when Stone and his daughter, Kylie, walked past. "Come here, come here. Where you going? Come here little Blondie. Little Taylor Swift-looking ass bitch," Aladdin called out to the teenager.

via KEEM / Twitter

Stone turned around and confronted Aladdin.

"She's 15 dude," Stone said.

"Hey bro, then why she out this late, bro? Why she out this late? This isn't Hollywood, bro," Aladdin responded.

"Why is she out this late? Because we just went on a father-daughter date, had dinner," Stone said.

Then, Aladdin started to drop his tough guy act and apologized.

"That's great," Aladdin said. "I apologize bro, I'm not trying to disrespect you in any way possible. I totally apologize."

"If I were you I would just shut the fuck up," Stone replied.

"No problem, sir. No problem. I didn't know she was 15," Aladdin said, as if it was okay to cat call women over the age of 15.

"Stop catcalling after women. Grow the fuck up," Stone responded.

After Stone walked away, Aladdin put on his tough guy persona again, trashing Stone for hanging out with his daughter and implying it was inappropriate. "She 15. Why's he hanging out with a 15-year-old girl. What a weirdo," Aladdin said.

Aladdin later deleted the video, but it was flagged and posted to Twitter.

Stone's reaction received praise on Twitter from people who respected the way he handled the interaction and stood up to catcalling.

After the video went viral, Aladdin posted an apology on YouTube.

"In the video I want to apologize to Skyler Stone," said Aladdin.

"I'm sorry for what I did to you the other night. It was embarrassing watching on my side. I'm sorry if I had ruined the night out with your daughter, I do apologize. More than likely I would have reacted the same way, whether it was my sister, daughter, whatever, I would have reacted the same way," he added.

But Stone hasn't accepted the apology because it was directed at him, not his daughter.

"It's super fake. He doesn't even address my daughter. It's directed at me...Make sure you talk to my daughter at some point. Because that's who you offended," Stone told Newsweek.

"Now my daughter's been really upset today because she saw the apology and she was crying earlier...she said 'I feel like as a woman I'm never going to be treated the same as a man,' he added.

If more people like Stone stand up to catcalling then one day women like Kylie could feel equal to men because they can walk down a public street without being harassed.

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