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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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As an asexual woman, finding my place in the queer community wasn't as simple as it sounds

Photo by Anthony Intraversato on Unsplash

Nervously, I reached into my purse and pulled out my ID, flashing it to the bouncer. It was 6 p.m. and I'd just come from work. My roommates were supposed to meet me, but they were always late, and tonight was no exception. So, it was with a pounding heart that I faced the crowd alone, trying to find the least threatening person to approach.

It was my first Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) meeting, specifically for those in the LGBT community, and I thought I'd found my people. Queer and political, sign me up. But as I took a closer look at those milling around, I realized that the space didn't look that different from what I was used to. I was still in the minority, because of both my race and gender. I was still being talked at by men who thought they knew more than me. I was still around people who seemed to assume that everyone wanted sex.

One of the only other women in the group came up to me and said "It's good to see another one of us here." "Another what?" I asked, a bit confused. "Another lesbian," she replied easily, as if it were obvious.

But that was not true. I'm not a lesbian. I'm asexual. And I had thought that coming to a group geared toward LGBT individuals—the full acronym being LGBTQIA+, where the A stands for asexual (also known as "ace")—would have allowed me the opportunity to meet others who identified similarly.

After figuring out that I was asexual, I thought finding community would be easier

I'd done all the hard work of figuring out that I was ace—I thought that finding a community would be easier. After years of internalizing heteronormativity, of consuming various movies and books where sex and relationships were presented as the ultimate goals, it was no wonder that it took me such a long time to realize that I didn't want that. And even longer still to accept and embrace that part of my identity, to realize that there were others who felt the same way. There was a whole community out there if I could just find them.

With the DSA LGBT event, I finally thought that I had. It turned out that it wouldn't be that simple. I kept attending events with queer and LGBT+ labels attached to them, hoping that I'd find someone who would understand. But I was realizing that just because we shared the queer label did not mean that we shared experiences. Many understood being different, sure, but not the difference that I felt. They still experienced sexual attraction, just not of the heteronormative variety. Sometimes, these spaces were even more sexualized as people felt comfortable expressing themselves in ways they couldn't in everyday life.

To find other ace people, I had to look elsewhere

When I was unable to find the community I was searching for by going to in-person events, I turned to the internet. Once I knew the terminology, I was able to search on various social media sites. I started following a blog on Tumblr that posted about ace topics. I began to see others post about experiences that mirrored my own.

It was on Instagram that I found a community of ace individuals in New York, where I live. They posted various resources for asexuals and even hosted monthly events. What I'd so desperately wanted earlier, an in-person community, was suddenly within my grasp. The page posted about a new support group for asexuals, and I decided to go.

What struck me first was that the room was diverse—there were a lot of non-cis men and a lot of POC folks. The organizers were women of color. As people began to share their stories, I felt a sense of calm envelop my body—I had found people who understood me. They had been uncomfortable in high school because they didn't understand everyone's desire to have sex. They had faced challenges navigating dating when sexual intimacy was something that may not even be on the table. They were older and wiser and made me feel like it was all going to be alright.

I may not feel like I belong in all queer spaces, but I've found a queer space that fits me. This space, and the people in it, provide me with the confidence to live my life authentically, to embrace the ace part of my identity. And when I inevitably encounter those who don't understand me, I know I've got a place to go for support.

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Culture

Two conservative justices pushed the Supreme Court to its historic LGBTQ+ decision

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This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a historic ruling that protects LGBTQ+ people from workplace discrimination. In the 6-3 ruling, two conservative-leaning justices, Neil Gorsuch and John Roberts, joined the four liberal-leaning judges in the decision. Gorsuch himself wrote the Supreme Court opinion.

The courts are supposed to be objective, so labeling justices as "conservative" and "liberal" always feels a bit reductive. But we live in a highly partisan era and it would be naive to ignore the politicized underpinnings of judicial appointments—especially in high-profile cases like this one, with a 5-4 split along conservative/liberal lines, which wouldn't have been surprising.

So how did these two conservative judges end up ruling in favor of the LGBTQ+ community, which is generally viewed as a liberal stance?

In a nutshell, they didn't. Not explicitly anyway.

The basis of the ruling isn't actually about legal protection based on sexual orientation or gender identity itself. In the opinion, Gorsuch explains that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits workplace discrimination based on "race, color, religion, sex, [and] national origin." What the court determined was that the "sex" part of the law is what LGBTQ+ workplace discrimination cases really boils down to.

"If the employer intentionally relies in part on an individual employee's sex when deciding to discharge the employee—put differently, if changing the employee's sex would have yielded a different choice by the employer—a statutory violation has occurred," Gorsuch wrote in the 27-page opinion.

The entire opinion includes specific precedents and arguments against dissents issued by the other conservative justices, but the gist of the ruling is summed up in these two paragraphs:

"An individual's homosexuality or transgender status is not relevant to employment decisions. That's because it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex. Consider, for example, an employer with two employees, both of whom are attracted to men. The two individuals are, to the employer's mind, materially identical in all respects, except that one is a man and the other a woman. If the employer fires the male employee for no reason other than the fact he is attracted to men, the employer discriminates against him for traits or actions it tolerates in his female colleague. Put differently, the employer intentionally singles out an employee to fire based in part on the employee's sex, and the affected employee's sex is a but-for cause of his discharge. Or take an employer who fires a transgender person who was identified as a male at birth but who now identifies as a female. If the employer retains an otherwise identical employee who was identified as female at birth, the employer intentionally penalizes a person identified as male at birth for traits or actions that it tolerates in an employee identified as female at birth. Again, the individual employee's sex plays an unmistakable and impermissible role in the discharge decision.

That distinguishes these cases from countless others where Title VII has nothing to say. Take an employer who fires a female employee for tardiness or incompetence or simply supporting the wrong sports team. Assuming the employer would not have tolerated the same trait in a man, Title VII stands silent. But unlike any of these other traits or actions, homosexuality and transgender status are inextricably bound up with sex. Not because homosexuality or transgender status are related to sex in some vague sense or because discrimination on these bases has some disparate impact on one sex or another, but because to discriminate on these grounds requires an employer to intentionally treat individual employees differently because of their sex."

What's interesting about basing the ruling on sex discrimination—aside from the fact that it makes perfect sense within the letter of the law—is that it serves as a loophole, which these conservative justices are able to rule in favor of LGBTQ+ protection under the law without explicitly defending anyone's sexual orientation or gender identity. In other words, they don't have to voice support for the LGBTQ+ community anywhere in this opinion—the law regarding sex discrimination covers it.

Gorsuch summed up the opinion as such:

"Ours is a society of written laws. Judges are not free to overlook plain statutory commands on the strength of nothing more than suppositions about intentions or guesswork about expectations. In Title VII, Congress adopted broad language making it illegal for an employer to rely on an employee's sex when deciding to fire that employee. We do not hesitate to recognize today a necessary consequence of that legislative choice: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law."

The court has concluded that "the law," as written,protects LGBTQ+ folks from discrimination because LGBTQ+ discrimination is inseparable from sex discrimination.

What's striking about this ruling is that it means these protections have already been in place for the past 56 years. In some ways, that makes the ruling more powerful than if new legislation had been passed adding specific language regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. On one hand, it sort of allows the court to skirt around the question of specific protections for LGBTQ+ people. On the other, it essentially reaches an arm around the LGBTQ+ community and sweeps them into the broad protections already guaranteed to everyone else.

With the argument being made by a conservative justice and signed off by another, that's a huge, historic statement and a big win for LGBTQ+ workers.

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A gay couple's pride flag helped give a young teen the courage to come out to their family.

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One of the questions that LGBT people get most often during Pride month is why we need to be so visible all the time — especially in June, when you can't turn a corner without running into a rainbow-themed display at Target. While there are many reasons — check some out right here — one of the biggest reasons visibility is important is that it's letting future generations know that it's okay to be who you are. That there will always be people who support you.

In Round Rock, Texas, that visibility helped change the trajectory of one person's life. And it all has to do with the rainbow flag a couple flies outside their home every day.

Sal Stow, who lives at the home in question with her partner, Meghan Stabler, was just out picking up the mail when she noticed that there was a handwritten note held down by a rock among the letters and packages. She didn't know what to expect — sometimes those things are just pizza delivery menus — but when she took a closer look, the sentiment brought her near tears.

"Hello, you don't know me," the note began. "We've moving away today, but I wanted to thank you. Seeing a Pride flag waving so proudly outside your house every day has given me the courage to come out to my family and be comfortable with who I am." The note-writer had also drawn a self-portrait. In it, they look healthy and content while waving the transgender and pansexual pride flags.

On Twitter and Facebook, the note's been shared thousands of times.


The message here is crystal clear: When we're open about who we are and live our lives free of fear and shame (to the extent which society allows), we're also inspiring others to live out loud. And for those who are struggling with being open about their sexual orientation or gender identity, the tiniest symbols of love and acceptance are a reminder that the world can be a good, supportive place. Sometimes, no words need to be exchanged.

Sure, many of us yearn for a world in which no one has to come out because it's no longer frightening or dangerous, but while Americans have made great strides forward in furthering LGBT+ rights, coming out is anxiety-provoking. Especially when the threats of family rejection and homelessness are still all too real. For many teens, there's a fear that their friends and families will turn on them due to their sexual orientation — even if their loved ones endorsed support for the LGBT+ community before.

In a town like Round Rock, where, Stow writes, the residents are primarily conservative and the local government unanimously struck down a motion to fly a Pride flag at the courthouse, this type of visibility has even more of an impact.

"I am proud of who I am and the person I love. I will continue to be visible in whatever way I can," Stow vowed on Facebook. Maybe it's time we all picked up a rainbow flag to hang near our doors to show pride in ourselves and be an ally for others? Just an idea!

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