From Scholar to Senator: The Incredible Story of Dr. Kristopher Wells
by Curated October 28, 2024 · Gay News / Gay Pride / Gay Rights
On August 31st, 2024, Dr. Kristopher Wells was appointed by Governor General Mary Simon to serve in the Senate of Canada on the advice of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The first openly gay man to serve in the Senate from Alberta and the sixth 2SLGBTQ+ person to serve since the creation of the Senate in 1867, Wells has a long and demonstrated history of scholarly research and advocacy in Edmonton’s 2SLGBTQ+ community and beyond.
In this story, we profile Dr. Wells, who has opened many doors for 2SLGBTQ+ communities and has become one of Canada’s most distinctive political figures.
Courtesy Senate Of Canada
Dr. Wells was born in 1971, in Edmonton. He holds three degrees from the University of Alberta: bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education and a Ph.D. in educational policy. Wells began his teaching career in 1994 with St. Albert Protestant Schools. For many years, Wells also served as the volunteer director of Youth Understanding Youth (YUY), which was Edmonton’s social support group for 2SLGBTQ+ youth. It was this experience where Wells found he could be the kind of authentic teacher he wanted to be, and the supportive adult youth needed. It was working with YUY that led him to graduate school so he could develop a “language and lens” to help make schools safer and more inclusive for 2SLGBTQ+ youth.
After graduating with his doctorate in 2011, Wells worked with Edmonton Public Schools as a diversity consultant, where he “helped [to] develop the first standalone sexual orientation and gender identity school board policy in Western Canada.”i
In his award-winning dissertation, “Sex, Sexual, and Gender Differences in Canadian K-12 Schools: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives on Identity, Policy, and Practice,” he coined the term “queer criticality,” which examines the “discursive practices, educational policies, and public discourses that undergird heteronormativity and disproportionately impact the personal safety and professional wellbeing of sexual minority and gender variant (SMGV) teachers and students in Canadian K-12 schools.”ii Queer criticality serves as a critical framework for administrators, pedagogues, and policy professionals to examine their own relationships to heteronormativity and the ways it may show up in the classroom.
During graduate school, Wells helped to create Camp fYrefly, which is an arts-based leadership retreat for 2SLGBTQ+ youth, which in 2024 celebrated its 20th anniversary with multiple locations across Canada. Wells was also involved in helping to establish the Alberta Gay-Straight Alliance Network and Conference, fYrefly in Schools, and the Family Resilience Project. All of his work has been centered around developing evidence-based practices and supports for 2SLGBTQ+ youth and families.
Image courtesy André P. Grace
In 2012, Wells became an Assistant Professor of Education at the U of A, where he also served as Faculty Director of the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services (ISMSS), now called the Fyrefly Institute. Among other endeavors, Wells helped to support U of A Pride Week, launched a campus safe spaces campaign, and helped to create the Inside/Out Speaker Series, where researchers, academics, and community workers presented their scholarly work to the U of A community.
As a community-based researcher, Wells published several articles on issues related to 2SLGBTQ+ youth and teachers in journals such as Canadian Journal of Education, Journal of Homosexuality, and International Journal of Inclusive Education. Indeed, Wells has been a pioneer in the study of inclusive education for 2SLGBTQ+ youth in Canadian schools, particularly in Alberta, lending his expertise for many years to the Journal of LGBT Youth, where he served as editor-in-chief and managed an international advisory board.
In 2018, Wells became MacEwan University’s inaugural Canada Research Chair for the Public Understanding of Sexual and Gender Minority Youth. At MacEwan, he is also Associate Professor in the Department of Child and Youth Care and founding director of the Centre for Sexual and Gender Diversity.
Perhaps Wells’s greatest accomplishment at MacEwan has been his leadership of the Edmonton Queer History Project (EQHP), a collaborative research initiative aimed at capturing, preserving, and highlighting the history of Edmonton’s 2SLGBTQ+ community. The project began in 2015 with an interactive media art exhibit at the Art Gallery of Alberta called “We Are Here: Queer History Project” that Wells spearheaded along with Edmonton’s first openly gay city councilor Michael Phair, Michael Janz, Dr. Alvin Schrader, and curator Dr. Michelle Lavoie.
Art Gallery of Alberta
Pride 2015
The exhibit was created in honour of the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Edmonton Pride Festival. Following the success of the exhibit, the EQHP transformed into an online research hub, welcoming contributions from Lavoie, Phair, award-winning playwright and documentarist Darrin Hagen, local author and co-owner of Evolution Wonderlounge Rob Browatzke, students Kyler Chittick, Japkaran Saroya, and Paige Simpson, and others as the project team expanded its scope and work.
In March 2022, the EQHP launched an interactive website with a corresponding walking tour map of more than two dozen key locations in Edmonton’s 2SLGBTQ+ history, from the legendary rival bars Flashback and The Roost to places like the Alberta Legislature and the city courthouse. Visitors to the website can download detailed PDF writeups of the locations.
In 2022, the EQHP team, in recognition of its outstanding work, was shortlisted for the Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Community Programming. In 2024, EQHP helped launch a new exhibition entitled “Regulating Morality” at Fort Edmonton Park and helped to host the National Queer and Trans+ Community History Conference at MacEwan University.
Against the backdrop of renewed moral panic in Alberta regarding 2SLGBTQ+ people, from protests outside “drag queen story hours” to legislation barring access to gender-affirming care for transgender youth, Wells’s nomination to the Senate was met with predictably knee-jerk reactions from social conservatives, including Alberta’s Premier, Danielle Smith, who decried the nomination of Wells to the Senate as undemocratic, since it ignored the results of Alberta’s unofficial (and illegal) Senate nominee election.iii This comment was a thinly veiled cover for Smith and the United Conservative Party’s moral conservatism. Indeed, Wells has long spoken out against social injustice in Alberta and has critiqued UCP policies on many occasions. As Wells, has said, the only thing that has changed in his new Senatorial role, is now he has “a bigger classroom” from which to help educate and advocate.
Complementing his political advocacy and scholarly acumen, Wells has been involved in a range of local initiatives in Edmonton and in Alberta more broadly. Examples include his involvement on various committees, including the Society for Safe and Caring Schools and Communities, REACH Edmonton, the Alberta Hate Crimes Committee, TELUS Community Advisory Board, the Edmonton Police Chief’s Community Advisory Council, helping to establish the St. Albert Policing Committee, and serving as a member the LGBTQ2+ National Monument Committee.
Wells is also co-creator of Pride Tape, an international campaign to encourage players in the National Hockey League to use rainbow-coloured tape on their sticks to show support for 2SLGBTQ+ youth, players, fans, and coaches. Pride Tape is now used in many sports and can be found in more than 60+ countries around the world.
Image courtesy St. Albert Gazette
In his capacity as a Senator, Wells is a member of the legislative branch of government, meaning he votes as part of Canada’s “sober second thought” on all legislation proposed by Members of Parliament in the House of Commons. Although he is an independent, non-partisan appointee, Wells is eager to advance social justice and human rights not just for 2SLGBTQ+ individuals but for all Canadians.
Wells says: “At the end of the day, we get the communities we are willing to build. And this means building an inclusive democracy that includes everyone.”
Funding for this story made possible by the Edmonton Heritage Council and the City of Edmonton
Notes:
i “Dr. Kristopher Wells,” Office of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, last modified August 31, 2024, https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/backgrounders/2024/08/31/dr-kristopher-wells.
ii Kristopher Wells, “Sex, Sexual, and Gender Differences in Canadian K-12 Schools: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives on Identity, Policy, and Practice” (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Alberta, 2011), 3.
iii Rahim Mohamed, “Alberta Premier Blasts Trudeau’s ‘Radical, Extreme’ Senate Appointments,” National Post, last modified September 23, 2024, https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/alberta-premier-criticizes-trudeaus-radical-extreme-senate-appointments.
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