Things are not always what they seem.

There was an article in Sky News about large numbers of young people seeking to reverse their decision to "transgender" themselves. Turns out changing their gender didn't make them as happy as they were promised it would do. Maybe their gender wasn't the problem.

My father was an alcoholic, as am I. Neither of us never lost our family or career, but we drank and lost our sense of self. When my father got sober and, nine years later I did likewise, I found out that feelings are often not what they seem.

My Dad and I both suffered from a great deal of anger. We did not beat our wives or anything like that. I got in bar fights for a while, but that phase didn't last long. But anger was always there for both of us. Anger management courses did nothing. You know that thing about expressing or "ventilating" your anger? Not only didn't work, it made things worse.

Then one time after I'd been sober a while I was talking with a psychologist about depression. This was not treatment, we were just chatting socially. He commented that I would never describe myself as depressed even if I was. I said that would be dangerous, to be depressed and not know it. I remember his response word for word. "Oh, no, you would manifest it as anger."

That social conversation started me on a journey. Was my anger actually something else manifested as anger? The answer, of course, turned out to be not just "yes," but "oh hell yes."

It wasn't depression as it turns out. What it was is not really pertinent to my point. I no longer have to deal with anger, though and I never actually dealt with anger. I worked until I found out what my problem was, I dealt with that problem, and the anger melted away.

How many of these poor lost souls who "transgender" would be saved a lot of pain if they had the good fortune to run across someone who helped them find out that the nature of their sexual organs was not what was causing them to feel weird?