Hello everyone! My name is Catherine, and my pronouns are (she/her). I’m a psychology major and this is my last semester at BMCC. After my graduation, I want to transfer to Hunter to get my bachelor’s degree in psychology. I want to become a clinical psychologist and especially support immigrant LGBTQ+ youth. I also want to travel as much as possible, I love discovering new places. Some things that I like are Ru Paul’s Drag Race, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, writing, listening to music, trying new dishes, and coffee. I’m also enjoying learning more about relationships and questioning monogamy. I don’t like closed-minded people and math.

I am originally from Guatemala, a country in Central America, and I moved to New York two years ago after my high school graduation. Moving to the U.S, was a very bittersweet experience since leaving everything behind, my friends, my home, my family, and just letting go of the place I always called home was uncomfortable, sad, and even scary. On the other hand, it was exciting because New York is a wonderful city, nothing compares to the rats under the subway lol. No, seriously, this is a gorgeous city. I love that it is like a little world, with people of so many different countries and cultures, and although we are very different, we all have something in common, which is courage and passion to work for our dreams. Something else that I love about New York it’s that it has some gorgeous places, and you are able to be whoever you want to be. In my natal country, marriage between same sex couples it’s not legal, as well as abortion, and there aren’t any laws protecting people of the LGBTQ+ community. Also, there are high rates of femicides, women disappear frequently, and the government doesn’t seem to care at all. Also, many people in Guatemala, still are very close-minded and conservative, which leads to the preservation of beliefs full of hate and disrespect, harming future generations. For example, I am bisexual, but I am not out of the closet with my relatives since they are homophobic, I am only out with people who are not my family. Another example is my friend who was suspended from my all-girls catholic school for months because they discovered she was in a relationship with another girl from my school.

This happened when we were 14 years old and it really touched me because I think it is so unfair that a school denied education to a child for her sexual orientation. Issues like this make me very passionate about social justice and psychology. Also, made me curious about learning more about sexual orientation, gender, and women. Therefore, I am taking this course. I am interested in taking further my knowledge about what does it mean to be a woman, the big spectrum that exists between the masculine and feminine gender, women throughout human history, and I want to know about things I am not aware that I don’t know. Wish you all the best this semester!