Dr. Tommy Mayberry

Tommy Mayberry, PhD (he/she/they) is the founding Director of the inaugural Centre for Teaching Excellence and Innovation at Yorkville University and Toronto Film School and also a very proud double-alumn of the University of Waterloo (Joint Hons. BA, SJU 2010; PhD 2022).

As an academic drag queen, they have published their work in numerous journals and edited volumes and have performed and presented their scholarship and research findings nationally as well as internationally. Tommy is co-editor (with Lindsay Bryde) of the award-winning book, RuPedagogies of Realness: Essays on Teaching and Learning with RuPaul’s Drag Race (McFarland 2022) – and currently have an equity and justice focused follow-up “shequel” edition in the works, too! – and Tommy is also a recipient of the University of Waterloo’s Award for Exceptional Teaching (2015) as well as of the 2024 CCCC Lavender Rhetorics Award for Excellence in Queer Scholarship.

Join Dr. Tommy Mayberry on April 10 at 11 a.m. for:

Gender Pronouns, Duties of Care, and Queer and Trans Survival

What began right here at the University of Waterloo as a 500-word Teaching Tip that Dr. Tommy Mayberry first wrote while a staff member at our Centre for Teaching Excellence in 2017 (and which is still one of UW CTE’s most-clicked Teaching Tips to date!) has since evolved into a highly-sought-after and needed-now-more-than-ever public dialogue and public scholarship presentation ("Gender Pronouns and Cultures of Respect") that Dr. Tommy has presented over 75 unique times with local to international corporate and community partners as well as educational institutions and governmental bodies.

In 2024 and beyond, Dr. Tommy is shifting the focus of this work from solely cultures of respect to identifying unambiguously our duties of care with gender pronouns for the survival of queer, trans, and nonbinary folx. Starting with their own story and lived experiences of coming to know and to love themself with three series of pronouns, Dr. Tommy creates and hosts a space for an open, frank, honest, and vulnerable interactive discussion about gender pronouns and our individual and community responsibilities as higher education professionals to increasingly ensure that our services and campus spaces are life-giving, not life-taking, for our students, for ourselves, and for each other.