Lal Zimman, who uses the pronouns he/him or they/them, is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at UC Santa Barbara on Chumash land
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Lal Zimman: 250 word bio [last updated Dec. 21, 2021]

Lal Zimman (he/him or they/them) is Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a sociocultural linguist whose research focuses on the relationship between language, identity, embodiment, and power. More specifically, Zimman is concerned with the linguistic practices of (and surrounding) transgender communities, which he approaches with a mixture of sociophonetic, discourse analytic, ethnographic, computational, and experimental methods. His publications address topics such as the creative use of genital terminology as part of the assertion of trans agency over the gendered body (Queer Excursions, 2014, Oxford; Journal of Homosexuality, 2014); trans-inclusive language activism and reform (Journal of Language & Discrimination, 2017); the contestation of homonormativity in trans people’s coming out narratives (Gender & Language, 2009); and the capacity for trans voices to unsettle assumptions about the nature of gender, sexuality, and the voice (Journal of Language & Sexuality, 2013; Language in Society, 2017; Linguistics, 2017). In 2014, Zimman published a co-edited volume, Queer Excursions: Retheorizing Binaries in Language, Gender, and Sexuality (Oxford University Press), which won the Association for Queer Anthropology’s Ruth Benedict Prize. He is also General Editor of OUP’s Series in Language, Gender, and Sexuality. In addition to ongoing work on gender and the voice, Zimman’s current work examines on issues including the deployment of pronouns and other terms of reference in discursive context, real-time change in the discourse of online trans communities, the linguistic experiences of trans students, and the complexities of gender and race in drag media such as RuPaul’s Drag Race.