By Mark W. Fowler

“Irony is a disciplinarian feared only by those who do not know it but cherished by those who do.” —Soren Kierkegaard

California is difficult to fathom. In San Francisco, people lie stoned in their own filth. Needles and human excrement, left in the street by people too stoned, too lazy, or too mentally ill to know better, litter the street. Visitors and shoppers avoid the area, which has led to the closing of businesses. Store owners and their employees have lost their jobs.

Business Insider reports that the city hired individuals at $184,000 per year in salary and benefits to sweep up this mess. The city spent $200,000 to build a 50 sq. ft. toilet in Noe Valley. Politicians congratulated themselves on firmly locking the door after the horse carrying public sanitation and decency left the barn.

Changes in the definition of “felony theft” increased the amount stolen to about $1,000. We have all seen the videos of thieves sweeping goods off shelves into bags for resale. This is Eden for liberals celebrating “reimagining” basic human tradition. Now, squalor, theft, and perversion are the order of the day.

Skylar Deleod is an embodiment of the abandonment of Western values, and he is honored for it. Born John Jacobson Jr., he was sentenced to death in 2009 for the 2004 murders of husband-and-wife yacht owners, whom he sought out pretending to be a potential buyer of the yacht. While sailing with the owners, he assaulted them with stun guns, forced them to sign power of attorney documents, and then bound them — blindfolded — to an anchor and threw them into the water. Their bodies were never found. The purpose of this scheme was to steal the yacht, sell it, and use the proceeds for a sex-change operation.

Skylar also killed another associate he met on a work furlough program for another set of crimes after that victim gave him $50,000. Skylar Deleon is not just troubled, he is the malignant embodiment of evil selfishness.

As a direct result of the efforts of Kamala Harris, Skylar, serving a death sentence (which will never be conducted, having been convicted in California), got his sex-change operation. California taxpayers paid for it. Harris, ever lost in a cloud of her own misguided morality, felt Skylar “deserved” this treatment. He was also charged with conspiring to kill two other individuals. Law-abiding taxpayers were mocked for their morality.

Most people in the civilized world would agree that prisoners are entitled to basic medical care. But gender reassignment surgery is not lifesaving or necessary to sustain an acceptable life. It is capitulation by doctors mistreating a delusional state. If Skylar had body dysmorphic disorder and desired plastic surgery to remove a fully functional arm or had anorexia nervosa and desired a gastric sleeve to lose weight, no surgeon in his right mind would do it.

Without denying the distress these troubled individuals experience, gender dysphoria is a delusional state in which a person believes him or herself to be the other sex. Thirty years ago, it was rare. It is now much more prevalent, likely due to social media appealing to troubled individuals who find this the “answer” to their distress. We should not doubt their distress but address it for what it is — a psychiatric disorder.

The tide is turning to a reconsideration of the treatment of this disorder. The Tavistock clinic in Britain closed its doors when it was discovered that many children were given surgery and hormones almost reflexively rather than a detailed psychiatric treatment. An argument can be made that some psychiatric illness is contagious. There have been times when eating disorders or multiple personality disorders and the like were more prevalent than now. Today, gender dysphoria is the rage. It will be replaced by something else, maybe therianism, in which people believe they are animals and call themselves “Furries.”

The irony is this: Skylar killed two people to steal from them for a sex-change operation. For his degeneracy, he was given what he wanted. There will be someone else just as degenerate who will break the law or hurt someone for a sex-change operation. Sodom and Gomorrah revisited.

Mark Fowler is a board-certified physician and former attorney. He can be reached at [email protected].