​GENDER INCLUSIVITY + RACIAL JUSTICE
​COACH, CONSULTANT, and EDUCATOR

Helping people with privilege know better, so we can do better.

I am both marginalized and privileged, so I totally get the necessity of navigating the harmful impacts of oppression while also coming to terms with my own complicity in maintaining those same systems and structures. I identify as a queer cisgender woman who is currently able-bodied and (not counting my debilitating student loan debt) middle-class.

The grandchild of Italian and probably Irish immigrants to the United States, I am one generation removed from the poverty in and family violence with which my parents grew up, but I am grateful to have been raised on lots of love and lasagna in southern New England, in the lands of the Mashapaug Nahaganset. I am a white settler currently living uninvited in Canada's Treaty 7 Territory, in the hereditary homelands of the Niitsitapi (the Blackfoot Confederacy: Siksika, Piikani, and Kainai Nations), the Îyârhe Nakoda, and Tsuut'ina Nations, ​and of the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region III.

​I live with my transgender partner, a cat named Spike, an ancient Yorkie named G-Dawg,
​and a mini mystery mutt named Sunshine, with whom I climb mountains and play dog sports.

Kimberly A. Williams, Ph.D.

Gender Inclusivity + Racial Justice Coach, Consultant, and Educator

  • Professor and Coordinator of Women's and Gender Studies, Mount Royal University
  • Master of Social Work (currently enrolled); specialization in group facilitation, leadership, and community engagement
  • Longtime mindfulness and yoga practitioner
  • All-season hiker
  • ​Dog whisperer​
  • Award-winning author, speaker, and group facilitator

Speaker + Facilitator

I am an engaging and dynamic professional speaker and facilitator. Grounded in two decades of experience delivering diversity, equity and inclusive excellence (DEI) training to adult learners across corporate, non-profit, government, and education sectors, my talks and workshops lead participants through interactive sessions that combine critical thinking and reflective practice with an intersectional feminist analysis.

I work with participants who embody a range of complex identities and who are at different levels of familiarity with DEI and social justice concepts. I am funny and compassionate while facilitating meaningful discussions to unlearn oppression and work toward equity and justice.

Bespoke workshops or talks are available on the following topics:
  • Intersectionality 101
  • Identifying and Unpacking Privilege
  • Unlearning Gender
  • Dismantling Systems of Oppression
  • Sex Work v. Sex Trafficking
  • Calgary's Sex Industry
  • Gender Equity
  • The (Shockingly Bad) Status of Women in Alberta
  • Making Your Organization Gender Inclusive

Thinking of another topic? Let's chat!

Educator

Whether I'm leading folks on my walking tour, facilitating community workshops and trainings, teaching classes at Mount Royal University (where I direct the Women's and Gender Studies Program), I bring energy and humour to my work. Having taught adult learners for over twenty years, I have a wealth of experience collaborating with diverse groups of people to engage in honest and brave conversations about DEI and social justice. I am a 2021 winner of Mount Royal University's Distinguished Faculty Award.

Author

Picture
My interdisciplinary feminist research program interrogates the power dynamics of political projects that rely on settler colonial narratives for cohesion. By highlighting the issues, people, and events of those erased or marginalized, my scholarship aims to upset the hegemony of those narratives and make necessary space for alternative constructions of knowledge that (re)center the voices and experiences of women, queers, and other Others. As a long-time feminist scholar-activist, I am also committed to mobilizing the freedom and (increasingly rare) security of tenure in the service of social justice. As such, my research not only exists in dynamic relationship with my teaching, but it also advances public knowledge and helps maintain a vibrant cultural awareness of issues affecting women, gender and sexual minorities, and other systemically oppressed groups. These are the common themes – and common goals – that continue to unite my various projects.

Tour Guide

As featured on the Women's March Canada Podcast, I have taken my research on Calgary's consensual adult sex industry to the streets in an historical walking tour. Booze, Broads & Brothels encourages participants to envision new ways of making sense of the old stories commonly told about Calgary’s past.

I offer the tour by pay-what-you-can donation to Shift Calgary.