Gender Pronouns and Cultures of Respect: Inclusive Instruction Series. Presented by Tommy Mayberry
Channel: Centre for Teaching Excellence
Date: 2021-02-10

We’ve all done it. Said the wrong pronoun, used the wrong name, and/or otherwise referred to someone in some sexed/gendered way and immediately wished we could take it back. (And, guess what? We are all going to do it – we’re all human; we all make mistakes.) So, how can we as instructors forestall these mistakes in our teaching practices and activate in ourselves an inclusive ideology for gender and sexed identities in our classrooms? In this session, we’ll start with some grammar and linguistic history to identify where these words come from in our language and how they work (and don’t work), and then we’ll discuss impacts and impasses of privilege and inclusivity to get us into some strategies for positive engagement with gender pronouns and teaching and learning. We’ll wrap up with highlighting pronoun awareness and cultures of respect to ultimately reflect on whiteness, marginalization, trauma, and continued struggle.

Tommy Mayberry (he/she/they), the presenter of this session, is the Manager of Outreach and Recruitment at St. Jerome’s University and is an academic drag queen currently finishing their PhD in English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo. Tommy is also co-editor of the forthcoming book, RuPedagogies of Realness: Essays on RuPaul’s Drag Race and Teaching and Learning (McFarland, 2021) and has presented their academic work and research across Canada and internationally in Oxford, Tokyo, Washington DC, and Honolulu.