Trans psychologist assumes the role of co-coordinator of Community Development for OTD Chile

Angie Hernandez, a community psychologist from the Universidad Católica, took over as co-coordinator of Community Development for OTD Chile. The 24-year-old professional from Talca has worked at Corporación Moviliza, Fundación Urbanismo Social and Servicio Jesuita Migrante as an intern. Now she is also head of community relations at Ingenieros Sin Fronteras.

She identified herself as a trans woman at 17. “At that moment I had the feeling that I was born in the wrong body, because those were the only notions of trans being that came to me, and at the University I was discovering that there was much more world than that, a less culpable notion of our identities. Now I’m still a trans woman, but my gender expression is not binary.

Four years ago, I socialized my identity via social networks with friends and classmates at the University. “It’s been wonderful years, I was very scared when I did it, I thought I was going to meet with rejection, my mom rejected me and I thought it was going to be like this with the rest of the world.”

Every time I spoke about it, I expressed it with guilt, but when I socialized it was only love, understanding, affection, a lot of ignorance too, I had to educate a lot of people, so there I assumed to be an activist,” she says.

What does it mean for you to join the OTD team?

For me OTD has always been a referent because every time I felt the need to ask for help, I came here, therefore we have a social responsibility. Being a referent implies commitment, seriousness, doing a better job and giving power to the people we represent. We have to be a channel and facilitator of these processes, we can not have the last voice, so as Co-Coordinator of Community Development I am interested in supporting this process of strengthening, generating links and building identity in a protected environment, safe and doing things well, with a sense of responsibility.

What is your invitation to the people who are our companions or future users?

My invitation is to have patience, to trust that we are working to continue improving our project to build a more robust organization, that is professionalized and provides a better service to people, whom it understands as participants and active entities in its processes. We want them to wait for us to be able to guarantee that these spaces work, that they have a sense that represents their common senses.

Translated by: Camila Mella