Under his leadership, Sacramento State’s LGBTQ community grows stronger

The door to the Sacramento State Pride Center coordinator’s office is almost always open.

A year has passed since Hei Fok stepped up as coordinator of the Pride Center, the university’s home base for LGBTQ students. The center’s presence on campus has grown stronger under Fok, whom students say tirelessly advocates for their needs as they face attempts at queer erasure in the country.

“Queer people have to come out all the time when they’re in a new environment,” Fok said. It’s clear this is a thought that often crosses his mind.

Fok, 51, is no stranger to new environments. Before becoming an American citizen, he was born and raised in Hong Kong. He’d known he was “different” since he was around 8 years old, dreaming of settling down with a male companion rather than a wife, but didn’t have the language to describe it yet.

The events of the 1980s finally introduced him to the concept of homosexuality as a teenager. But representation in the Hong Kong media primarily took the form of the AIDS epidemic.

“That was a time when that was all we knew in terms of … gay men,” he said. “They would die of AIDS, they’re all promiscuous — that sort of negative association. Because of that, it was like, ‘I absolutely cannot share (my sexual orientation) with anybody.’”

In 1994, Fok moved to Sacramento with his mother and fully embarked on his coming out journey. He eventually transferred to Sacramento State, where he would meet his future husband. They recently celebrated their 13th wedding anniversary.

Higher education offered a safe space that Fok never left. After transferring to and graduating from Sacramento State, he spent almost 19 years working at the school’s College of Continuing Education, eventually becoming its associate director.

In January 2024, the Pride Center’s previous coordinator left their position. A job listing remained vacant for almost half a year.

“I looked at it and it reminded me of a sense of wonder I always had for decades,” Fok said. “Whether or not I would work in a queer space.”

He’d already found a calling supporting students. This was a chance to continue doing so, but in a way that allowed him to lean fully into his identity as a gay man. He got the job.

Increasing visibility

Fok assumed leadership of the Pride Center during a period of transition. Founded in 2006, the center had previously occupied a single, tiny room on the University Union’s first floor.

“It was kind of in a closet,” recalled Christian Hernandez-Hunter, a recent graduate of Sacramento State. “You were lucky if you could get maybe 10 people in there.”

The previous center’s diminished physical presence mirrored its visibility on campus. Hernandez-Hunter had actively sought out the space, hoping to connect with fellow queer students as president of the College Democrats of Sacramento State and chief executive officer of Lavender Alliance, the college’s queer student advocacy group.

“It’s kind of like a secret handshake,” he said. “If you don’t know something about it, you’re not going to know about it.”

In fall 2023, a student petition calling for a bigger space eventually reached college president Luke Wood. Under Fok, the Pride Center moved to a multipurpose suite on the second floor of the union in September 2024.

When the semester is in session, some students visiting the Pride Center don gender-affirming clothes for the first time at the Rainbow Wardrobe. Others bond over queer movie nights or baking in the center’s communal kitchen.

The number of events hosted by the Pride Center, such as speaker series and Sacramento State’s staple Queer Prom increased after Fok assumed leadership. Though Hernandez-Hunter hopes to see increased outreach, he notes that Fok’s approach to the role puts him in a great position to continue expanding the center’s presence on campus.

“What I was really hoping for was somebody that was going to come in, really just take the reins head-on and just advocate for more,” Hernandez-Hunter said. “(Fok) was one of the ones who advocated for the Pride Center expansion, he championed it, and he got it.”

Here to stay

Colorful flyers for gender-affirming care, notices about scholarships related to queer studies and directions to queer peer counseling groups line the wall and table by the entrance to the Pride Center.

One of Fok’s main concerns as coordinator is to connect students to the resources they need. But, as rising senior Michael Mucheru points out, the Pride Center itself is a resource — a safe space that houses community.

“I’m in there almost every single day,” they said. “It’s my home.”

Though student workers and volunteers help maintain the Pride Center, Fok is the only permanent member of staff. He has inevitably become the face of the Pride Center. He understands the mantle now falls on him to continue helping students feel secure in their identity, the way he’s learned to feel secure in his.

“Students really feel that there’s erasure going on in terms of queer folks,” he said. “(There’s a) lack of any type of hope for the near future in terms of what they’re seeing, what they’re experiencing.”

Under the Trump administration, the federal government only recognizes a person’s sex assigned at birth, regardless of whether this corresponds to their gender identity. The Department of Defense banned books with themes of sexual orientation, gender identity and race from schools under the goal of “ending radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling.” And efforts to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion programs coincide with government agencies scrubbing mentions of trans people from their websites.

Fok’s advocacy remains within the university: he is careful not to comment directly on policies under the Trump administration that concern higher education and queer students. But he recognizes the challenge of “continuing to help everybody be who they are.” The Pride Center adopted “Queer Love Is Here to Stay” as a theme informing its events and programming.

Students took the mantra to heart. Shortly after the 2024 presidential election, Mucheru recalled visitors tacking sticky notes to the bulletin board in Pride Center’s kitchen. They shared words of affirmation and alternate sources of hormone replacement therapy should the federal government halt gender-affirming care.

Moments like these make Fok appreciate the resilience of his young visitors, who are often the same age he was when he first began exploring his identity as a gay man.

“Some of them just started learning how to drive, and sometimes they’re open about what they fear,” he said. “They remind me of the responsibility that I feel in terms of our next generation … in terms of what we do that can really make an impact on younger folks.”

This story was originally published July 11, 2025 at 5:00 AM.