In Our Gaybourhood

Romi and the GSA

• JC Fung, Romi Chandra-Herbert • Season 1 • Episode 1

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Every student deserves to be safe. And when we feel safe, we can grow and succeed. Romi Chandra-Herbert wanted to help his high school peers find that safety, so he started the first GSA in British Columbia (...and maybe in Canada?)
Romi is a lifelong activist and an advocate for queer folks, for immigrants, and for human rights issues worldwide. He has worked with groups like Qmunity, North Shore Multicultural Society (now Impact North Shore), Vancouver Coastal Health, PeerNetBC, and Justice Institute BC. Listen as he shares his story with us.

Content warning: This episode contains brief mentions of homophobic (at 4:11 and 12:53) and transphobic slurs (at 4:13), and suicide (at 17:31).

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JC Fung: Welcome, neighbour!

This is "In Our Gaybourhood," the oral history podcast that journeys through the queer  communities of so-called British Columbia. I'm your host: JC Fung.

We are so thankful to be launching our first season as part of Queer Arts Festival. Together, we'll explore the stories of 2SLGBTQIA+ advocates, educators, and students who are transforming our schools into spaces where everyone can belong. In each episode, we'll get to meet our neighbours and explore some of the events and milestones that have shaped our schools and our queer communities in the unceded territories west of the Rockies. We'll learn about who they are, what it was like doing the work, and what they've learned along the way.

This podcast is for us. For students all across the rainbow, for educators and activists, for curious community members who want to learn more about queer stories, and everyone in between. Together, we'll learn from our elders and from each other about how we've shaped our identities, our lives, and our communities. 

Here, we tell our own stories.

Warning: This episode contains brief mentions of homophobic and transphobic slurs, and suicide. You know yourself best. Please do what you need to do to keep yourself safe. Check the show notes for exact times.

Romi Chandra-Herbert: We were invited into the elementary school library. As I'm sitting there, I'm half paying attention because all around me on all the walls are rainbow stickers, trans flags, and messages of love.

JC: In our first episode, we get to meet Romi.

Romi: My name is Romi Chandra-Herbert. I am a proud stay-at-home dad, and I am a very active member of my community. I love being a part of my community, and I love taking care of my community, and I enjoy being challenged by my community.

JC: In addition to being a father and a husband, Romi is a lifelong activist and an advocate working for queer folks, for immigrants, and for human rights issues worldwide. He's worked with groups like Qmunity, North Shore Multicultural Society, Vancouver Coastal Health, and PeerNetBC to create queer, youth, and immigrant support networks, education programs, and anti-racism and anti-oppression programs all across BC.

It all started with a GSA.

These days, if you go to an elementary or high school in BC, there's probably a GSA. If the acronym is unfamiliar to you, GSA stands for Gender and Sexuality Alliance. In earlier days, it originally stood for Gay-Straight Alliance. It's a student club that might be also known by other coded names like Rainbow Club or Diversity Club.

Clubs like these provide a safe space for students from all across the spectrum to be who they are and to find support in their school communities. For many queer students, having this support can make all the difference in the world for their lives and their future success.

Did you know the very first GSA was started in 1972 in New York at George Washington High School? This GSA was an activist group. It was very vocal and anti-colonial and organized alongside early gay rights groups demanding queer student rights. In the following years, GSAs spread across the US and became more focused on creating safe and supportive spaces. But they didn't make an appearance in Canada until decades later.

In 1997, Romi started the first GSA in BC. It may have even been the first in Canada, but I'm not sure.

Let’s hear Romi tell his story.

Romi: I was born and raised in Fiji. And in Fiji. I knew there was something different about me. I wasn't sure what that was. We didn't have television there. And so we didn't have any introduction to queer characters or television characters or any of that stuff. No one talked about it so I didn't know what that was until I moved to Canada when I was 9. 

And that's when I learned the words fag and dyke and tranny and all those words. Eventually, I looked it up in the dictionary because I didn't know English very well when I moved to Canada. And when I learned what those words meant it was just this feeling of “Oh, okay. I think that's who I am.” But along with that also came the dread of “Okay, people are using this in a way that's mean and hurtful, and so I can't be that, I don't want to be that.” So a lot of that I tried to suppress until eventually in high school, I was able to figure out that I can be proud of who I am.

When I moved to Canada,  I lived in Main Street near Punjabi town. Before I moved my parents warned me there will be people in Canada that don't look like me. And in my mind, I was like “Okay, what does that mean? What? They don't look like me?” And when I went into classroom, they're all brown kids. And I'm like “My parents lied to me! They're all exactly look like me.”

But it wasn't until sort of getting a bit more in depth in learning the differences in between us brown folks that I learned, okay, there are even further divisions that are happening here: I didn't quite speak the same language as the other brown kids or I wasn't from the right part of India. And so from there, I learned that there was something different about me as well.

When I moved to Maple Ridge, that's when I was surrounded by a lot of white kids. And that's where I started to also sense a bit of racism. Initially, the bullying came in the form of racism, because I think people may not have recognized that I may have been gay or not. But it certainly came right after in the playgrounds and school classrooms, people using these words. Slowly, over time, it became I would hear adults using these words as well.

During that time, I think it was hard for both my parents and us to kind of adjust to this kind of life being in Canada. Primarily because my parents, they had jobs and worked in really good-paying jobs in Fiji. But when we came to Canada, they were nowhere near what they were worth. So it was I think that they were dealing with that challenge of isolation and feeling “What is their worth in this place?” And as I was going through mine, “What is my worth in this place?”

And I think that a lot of that had to do with just wanting to fit in. They started talking to us in English in Fiji, just before we came. I went to a traditional Hindi school, where we were writing Sanskrit and learning all Hindi languages. So it was a real interesting switch to be like, “Okay, now you gotta learn English.” And so I was like, “Okay, let's figure this out.”

And in the process of all of that, now, today, I can no longer speak my language because of that, kind of, force to be part of the norm. A lot of that also came with, “Well, my culture doesn't accept me. So should I shun my culture away, and push that away from my identity?” So I think a lot of me losing my language and my faith and religious aspects of Hinduism went along with that, too. It was like, “Well, if my God doesn't like me, then I don't like my part of that identity either.”

JC: Coming out can be complicated and challenging. But it gets even more complicated when you're a child in a family navigating the Canadian immigration process.

Romi: We weren't citizens yet, so we were still going through the citizenship process and trying to figure out what does that look like, and how I should be a good citizen. What can I do? Or what can I not do that will send me back to my country?

And so, all of these things were sort of on the forefront of my being. And so, when I was coming out, it was also like, “Well, if I come out, is it okay for me to come out?” Will that be a thing that they look in the citizenship and say, “Hm...I don't know if we want gays in our country.” And this was as a young kid, thinking about all these things.

JC: Without access to good information about queer people and gay issues, learning even the most basic facts about gay life gets messy.

Romi: During that time, there was a lot of conversations about HIV/AIDS on television. That was my only introduction to queer people. Whether it was activism on HIV/AIDS medication and all that stuff, and that was always on the news. 

And so, during that early years in Canada, I kind of formed this idea, falsely, that the day you come out is the day that you also have AIDS. Because no one, when I was 10 or 11, no one ever told me what does that look like? In my mind, it was this correlation. 

So when my mom told me that “You're gonna get a job one day.” And I was like, “Oh, oh. Do they do blood tests?” And my mom's like, “Yeah, why? Do you have AIDS?” It was just a joke because that was what was on the conversation on television. So I was like, “Oh, no! No no no.” Part of that was like, keeping all that a secret. 

And I couldn't figure out... I'm watching television. I'm seeing older gay men, in particular, talking on television. And in my mind, I was like, “Well, I think I know that AIDS... You don't have a long time to live. So how are they able to make it?” And in my mind, it was the day that you realize that you're gay was the day that you have it, so it didn't matter when you came out. 

And at that time, the only thing that I could think of that I knew, I started researching and I found out that there was AIDS Vancouver. And so, I started to take the bus from Maple Ridge to Vancouver, to AIDS Vancouver, and read books on how to take care of yourself on the holistic ways, rather than going to the doctor or the medication. And then, I came across a book that said how people actually do contract at HIV/AIDS. And I was like, “Oh! Oh, okay. Phew! Okay, I don't have that.” Now, I just need to tell my parents that I'm gay,

JC: Hah! Yeah, because coming out is just that simple.

Romi: But at that time, I also started to volunteer in that community, like the AIDS ribbon campaigns. And I would bring that to my school, and my high school friends would support me in that. And eventually, they kind of started suspecting, “Are you gay?” And I was like, “Oh, I don't know.” 

Eventually, I did come out to my friends. And for the most part, they were really, really supportive. That was really exciting. But I still hadn't met anyone who was part of my community in my school.

JC: Building the confidence and courage to come out takes time, and finding supportive community is often such an important part of that process.

Romi: I knew that there was youth groups in my community. And I learned where they were, and one of them was in a public library. So I’d go to the library and walk around the building, never going in, sneaking a peek in to see what do other gays look like in my neighborhood. Do I recognize anyone? 

And it took me 2 years to finally get the courage. And it wasn't me who did it, it was one of my friends where I was doing volunteer work. She said that she knows of a youth group at the library, and I was like, “Oh! Tell me more.” 

She had friends who were part of this group. And so, she knew that this was a place that I would find safety. And so, she brought me in. And it felt like, “I'm familiar with these faces, but they don't know who I am.”

JC: Youthquest operated from 1993 until 2007. Unfortunately, the organization no longer exists, but when it did it coordinated support groups and provided community-based services and educational outreach for queer youth all across BC.

Romi: Kids shouldn't need to go out of their communities to go and seek support. So Youthquest was creating drop-in programs in like Burnaby and Coquitlam and Surrey.

JC: One of these support groups helped Romi build the confidence to come out.

Romi: And that's when I started making connections and meeting other queer people who are like me. That became my safe space on Thursday nights after school, where I would go to just sit and relax and be who I was. And see other people who were like... Most of the time, I sat in quiet, just observing everyone. And it was the best time of my life. 

When I started to feel the confidence of being who I was, from receiving support from my friends in my queer youth group. In school, people would start to ask me, or more like accuse me, “Oh, you're gay!” Or you're a faggot!” And that's when I started to actually stand up and say, “Yeah, actually, I am.” 

And so, I got that courage and people got shocked. And they were like, “What? Oh, okay.” And they would still call me names, but there was a certain confidence that they saw in me and it showed that I didn't care. I mean, I cared but their words weren't hurting me anymore, because I was no longer ashamed of that identity. 

And through that process, individual kids started coming out to me in secret, and telling me that they might be this way but please don't tell anyone. 

It broke my heart because I was in that place myself. It felt overwhelming, because I didn't know what to do, or how to provide a safe...sorry...how to provide a safe space for them. I needed, I wanted to do something. 

All my friends who are really supportive, we used to sit out in the hallway of the art wing. And it was sort of my own support group. And I felt like those kids needed to have that space, too.

JC: It's 1997.

Romi: So I decided to talk to my teacher and my teacher-librarian said, “Well, why don't you start a group or something at lunchtime for the kids?” And I was like, “Oh yeah, that's a great idea.” And because I was going to all these other youth groups, I kind of had a sense of, okay, that's what they do and that's what I want to do in my school. And these kids shouldn't have to go to outside their communities to get the support. 

So I started to run a group with the support from my friends, and it was, at first, mostly just us. We weren't allowed to advertise because they were concerned about homophobia, or other kids showing up wanting to threaten us. So students had to ask a counselor to come to and find the room, and that was a barrier itself for many kids.

It took a while for our group to get going but we just kept showing up, and more and more kids started showing up. And slowly, I started to meet more people in my school who were identifying in that way. 

And slowly, over time, other school districts started talking about this GSA. And the news found out about that I'd started this GSA in my school, and they wanted to come up to interview me. And I said, “Okay, sure, why not, I have nothing to lose.” 

And so, they showed up to my school and that's when I found out that my school was the first GSA in BC and that's why they were coming there. That kind of took me by surprise because I wasn't doing this because I wanted to be the first, I just was doing this because it just made sense. 

On television, they caught people calling me and my friends names. And so, it was kind of a feeling of relief in a way that it wasn't just my story anymore, that it was out there.

JC: Being the first in your school to come out is not easy, especially when the bullying and intolerance is coming from all sides.

Romi: Many of the adults in that time, there were you know... I had some teachers come up to me and tell me, “I don't really support queer people, or even straight people, holding hands in school.” And I was like, “Well, I never asked for your opinion. I'm not interested in you telling me this so why are you? You're a math teacher.” And so at that point, I just became more and more angry with the world that they had a right to tell me how they felt but I couldn't tell them who I was.

JC: And even spaces that were supposed to be supportive weren’t safe.

Romi: I joined a peer counseling group. There, one of my friends who also had come out, we became friends and started doing counseling for other kids. 

But one of the hardest things that happened during that time was all the schools in that district decided to have a peer counseling retreat. And we all went, and I felt like I was in a good space. And on one of the overnights, I heard some kids talking about how I was a queer person and they were talking about how they wanted to beat me up. And I'm just laying in bed kind of going “What is going on here? I’m at a peer counseling retreat and this is what's happening?” 

And so, it kind of made me realize at that point that safety has so many different ways of coming out and expressing itself. What unsafe means. At that time, I was just really frustrated and angry. 

During that time, also, one of my friends ended up committing suicide and that was really hard because no one at the funeral recognized his identity. And we weren't invited to the funeral, but we knew when it was happening so we showed up anyway. 

And that was about 25, almost 30 years ago. And Kevin was the person who was so kind and loving, and we didn't understand why he would have done this to himself. So that kind of pushed us, all of us, into a place of like “This is enough. We don't want to keep hiding anymore.”

JC: Romi started the GSA because he wanted to support other students in his school. He knew that when students don't feel safe, they can't learn and succeed.

Romi: I want a safe space. I just want to go to school. I want to graduate. And the longer I was in school, the more it felt that graduation or being successful was getting further and further away.

JC: Other students from other schools shared this feeling, too. And so, Romi raised his voice to help them create their own safe spaces.

Romi: All the other school districts were like, “Oh, well, maybe we could do a GSA.” Or the students in those schools anyway, or teachers. But the school districts themselves were fearful of that happening. And so, some school districts, like Surrey, decided to pass resolutions that talk about that students needed to have parent permission to join clubs. And again, that was such a huge barrier. And so, we would go and attend school board meetings to say “No, that's not okay.”

JC: He could see that action was needed at all levels of the school system, and Romi started working with teacher-activist groups like Gay And Lesbian Educators of BC to push for changes.

Romi: Along with some of the teachers, GALE BC, they were trying to talk about this in school systems in a more systemic way. 

I remember a teacher, Murray Corren, who wanted to create legislation in his school board in Coquitlam to protect teachers and students and, in the harassment policy, include the words “sexual orientation.” And I was like “Yeah, of course, that's such a basic thing.” 

And they asked if I would speak and I said “Sure, absolutely.” And I showed up to the school board, talked to them about why it was important. And the school board said, “Sure, okay, come back in 2 weeks and we will make the decision.” 

So we went back 2 weeks later, but they had moved the meeting from their usual chamber into a school gymnasium with hundreds of seats. And I was puzzled. Why was there all these seats, when 2 weeks ago, there was only enough room for 20 people? Slowly, the room filled with people. And when it came time to discuss this policy, the school board rejected the policy. And about... In the about hundred people, about 95% of the folks, parents, stood up and applauded the rejection of this policy. 

It was the first time in my life where I saw the hate from adults coming towards me. And it was really powerful to see that. Because there were other queer kids, too. And other queer kids there started crying and I started crying, too. But we weren't sure why we were crying. I think a lot of that was just seeing that amount of hate.

JC: Romi, his friends, and GALE BC kept raising their voices for queer students and teachers. And in March of 1997, the BC Teachers’ Federation made a big step.

Romi: Gay and Lesbian Educators of BC at that time was wanting to create some policies where teachers were kept safe. And the BCTF, BC Teachers’ Federation, they were hosting their annual general meeting where they were going to talk about inclusion of these policies. And we heard that the same parents that were at the Coquitlam School Board had organized a protest in front of the Hyatt in Vancouver. And so, we decided “No, we're gonna come show up as well.” So we did, and they were on one side, we were on the other side. And thankfully, the school... Teachers Federation passed the resolution. And as of now the teachers have the confidence to bring in LGBT queer content into the classrooms.

JC: After graduation, Romi continued his advocacy work at Qmunity, where he ran educational workshops and facilitated youth support groups, making safe spaces for queer youth just like the ones he wanted create for his high school peers.

Romi: It was phenomenal to be in classrooms and talking about our lives and our stories and the stereotypes and the misconceptions that exist out there. In every workshop, there were kids that were coming out to me saying “I might be queer.” And at this point, I felt so confident and I was able to hand them a flyer and say, “Here's a program that you can come to.” 

They would come in from Surrey, Maple Ridge, and they would come into our center, close the bathroom doors, and reemerged as this beautiful, immaculate, magical human being all dressed to the nines.

And before they went home, they would take their clothes off and go back, right, so that was hard, too. But it was also... We created that space for that moment. And it felt very heartwarming to be in that space. Just to provide that safe space they could be whoever they wanted. And it was this feeling of... That there is a place for you. And you are welcome. I'll keep an eye out for you outside the building in case you're concerned about coming. I'll walk you in.

JC: Over the next 2 decades, he would go on to work with organizations all over BC to fight racism, classism, and other forms of oppression. But advocacy is heavy work, and over time Romi found that it became a harder and harder load to carry.

Reflecting on one particular workshop for the Justice Institute of BC, Romi decided to take a step back.

Romi: The last training that I did was really, really tough. It was with a group of emergency workers, and they were mandated to do an anti-oppression training because there someone had taken them to court. We were doing an elementary school workshop for these professionals, and in each of these workshops the adults behaved in ways that I have never seen even elementary school kids behave: the language that they used and the way that they commented on things. 

And one of the things that we talked about was how powerful uniforms are and what kind of power that represents to people. And there was a case scenario where they come into a space, and no one speaks English but a young girl. And she speaks English so she's going to be translating. How do you balance out that power dynamic that exists between you and this girl, and maybe this family who's coming from a place of questioning authority? And the response we got was like, “Oh, well, we'll take our clothes off.” 

And so, it was these moments where I felt like I was going backwards. And that kind of humor and that kind of... It was just overwhelming. And at that point, I just realized I couldn't do this work anymore. It just took so much out of me to do this training for adults, and them behave this way was too much. And I was getting jaded and I was getting angry. And so, I had to step back from that. 

And around that time was when our family started to grow. And I was like, “Okay, this is actually a really good time in my life to take a step back and figure out where it is that I want to go and focus my energy into.”

All these years, it's been in community and community development work. And now, I kind of want to look at something that brings joy to people and the work. And so, that's where I'm at right now, in that transition phase of wanting to shift from that hurt and justice work to something creative.

JC: Now, that he has a little bit of distance, i asked Romi what he learned from his years of advocacy.

Romi: When I was doing all of this, it was just kind of like “Okay, I got to do this, because it's important.” And then, all of a sudden, you see yourself getting to a place of like “Why am I doing this?” 

It was sort of re-traumatizing myself going into these trainings. My job was to pull out people's inner feelings about these issues. If I didn't do that, I wouldn't be doing a good enough job. But hearing and pulling out those homophobic words, and pulling out those sentiments that people held, and being gentle with that was starting to re-traumatize me again.

And it was at that point where I was like “Okay, I need to take care of myself at this point and just not get back into that feeling of helplessness.” Near the end of my advocacy work in this field, that's where I felt like I was getting to and I didn't want that.

JC: Burnout is real. Advocacy work is care work and caring is hard work. 

How does Romi care for himself?

Romi: It's important to cry. 

It's important to know that that emotion is real, whether it's your own feeling of isolation or the feeling that others have of anger or hatred towards you. That exists and I think it's okay to be emotional about it, and to acknowledge where are you at. 

With this, a lot of it is if we do it from anger, it can backfire and hurt more people. So I think it becomes important to come from a place of love. And it may be hard to do that, especially when you're facing that kind of hatred. But I think transforming that into the love of others who are struggling, becomes really important. 

Because I've experienced all of these. Right now, my experiences are not the same as someone who's in high school today. But that doesn't mean it's any easier. So it's important to recognize that things have changed, but not always. 

And we assume that people who are hurt should get over it, and it’s not that easy. And that it's a lifelong process for many people, and I think we need to be more compassionate about that. That just because someone faced something so long ago, that that doesn't affect them now as an adult... Because we need to recognize that it is. There's a lot of trauma that people need to deal with and the hurt that has come from that.

How people express that is really up to them, and what they see, and how they need to get the support that they need. But I think talking about it is important. Finding people who are doing similar work as you is important. Transforming that hurt instead of just sitting in it.

JC: Since he stopped facilitating workshops and doing community development work, Romi has found joy and fulfillment in being a father, raising a young son, and finding a new place in his community. A few years ago, his son was old enough to start kindergarten, and Romi found himself back at school, but in a completely different setting.

Romi: Just before we started school, there was an orientation about “Your kid’s going to start kindergarten, what is that going to look like?” So we all went. We were invited into the elementary school library.

As I’m sitting there, I’m half paying attention because all around me on all the walls are rainbow stickers, trans flags, and messages of love. And I’m just sitting there almost weeping, in an elementary school that this was happening.

And when he started his class, my husband or I would show up to pick him up, and one of the kids ran up to us and said “Hey, I heard Dev has 2 dads.” And I was ready and prepared to do my one-hour workshop with this kid. With a 5-year-old, at age-level appropriate. And I just looked at him and I said, “Yeah, actually, he does have 2 dads.” And the kid looked at me and said, “Wow! That’s so cool!” and ran away. So I was like “Oh, okay. I don’t need to do my workshop.”

JC: So what is Romi hoping for in the future?

Romi: I look back into looking at when I came out and what the queer community did for me. That feeling of community should be there for those kids in high school, and it should be there throughout their lives. But when they’re graduating, I don’t want them to feel alone that they did this on their own. That this was a collective... You did this together.

And going forward, that that’s also the way that we build community. No matter what you are.

Sometimes we think... When people ask “What community are you a part of?” And some people have a hard time describing that, and I kind of want it to be like that. It’s kind of hard to describe what community I’m a part of because I’m a part of many. That there are many communities out there, and you can be a part of any of them.

JC: Thanks for listening to "In Our Gaybourhood" and to today's conversation with Romi Chandra-Herbert on the first GSA in BC. Be sure to check the show notes for links to references and to find out more information about some of the organizations we mentioned.

If you want to hear more, be sure to subscribe to the podcast. If you have feedback for us or there's someone that you think we should talk to, you can find us on Instagram at @inourgaybourhood, all one word, or email us at inourgaybourhood@gmail.com.

So much gratitude to all the wonderful people who helped to make this episode happen: to Romi Chandra-Herbert for sharing his voice and his stories with us; to his husband, Hon. Spencer Chandra-Herbert, for letting us record in his office; to the Queer Arts Festival team for their advice and their trust. Sound and recording by SJ Kirsch. Artwork by Cheryl Hamilton. Storytelling advice by Lisa G, Yasmeen Nematt Alla, and Skipper. Production, writing, and editing by me, JC Fung.

"In Our Gaybourhood" is made possible by listener donations and funding from the Queer Arts Festival.

So long! See you next time in our gaybourhood.


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