Justine's Honors Blog

Our last discussion was a good discussion. That topic is something that provokes strong opinions and sometimes strong feelings. I have given this topic thought before. In high school I took a communications class and I did a debate over boarder control and illegal immigrants. I was on the side of stronger boarder control. I based my argument not on the fact that immigrants are coming to America for jobs and to better their life but on the information I found about drugs and violence and how that needs to stop. I don’t believe that either side is right or wrong when it comes to this issue because it is something that is difficult to deal with. However, I would hope that it could help return jobs to the citizens. I think that the strongest argument is that there is no right way to solve the issue with illegal immigrants but just like anything you have to start someone before you can progress. As for the video, I had already heard of this new law so no new feelings came to me after watching it. When the sheriff talked about how this new law is shifting the attention from more important issues I disagreed with him. Like any new law it just adds one more responsibility for law enforcers. He wouldn’t have to hold the stops to check for license and registration, instead why not just incorporate checking for citizenship in a regular stop. If a person doesn’t have their license or registration when pulled over then proceed with checking for citizenship during the stop.

The article was about the DSM and how it has and should be modified. There are issues with Gender Identity Disorder. This disorder is controversial because some people think it is one of the ways people are trying to put homosexuality back in the DSM as a mental disorder. The Youtube videos were about Chaz Bono, Cher’s son, who is a transgender. One of the videos is a performance of him on Dancing With The Stars dancing to Phantom of the Opera, and the other is an interview with him.

The article about the DSM made me think a lot about how things are viewed as mental disorders. When the article was talking about transgender it made me think if they take that out of the DSM shouldn’t body dismorphic disorder no longer be considered a mental disorder? Also, I never thought about how people may translate gender identity disorder into trying to prevent or treat homosexuality. I definitely think that homosexuality needs to stay out of the DSM but I never really connected treating GID with trying to treat gays and lesbians.