vision statement: a tranifesto

The UCSB Trans Research In Linguistics Lab (TRILL) promotes understandings of language, power, and identity through trans-centering research and community engagement. We are committed not only to trans analytic lenses, but also social and linguistic justice for gender non-normative communities, within and beyond academia. We understand ‘transness’ broadly, taking into account the ways gendered identities are produced by and in conversation with various forms of domination and resistance. Thus, we recognize gender as necessarily intersecting with other subjectivities and positionalities, among them race, ethnicity, and citizenship; disability and neurodiversity; linguistic and semiotic repertoires and communicative modalities; class; and sexuality. Through our academic and community-based work, language is central because of its capacity to both oppress and empower, to dehumanize and to make whole, to bring suffering and to bring joy.

TransTalks & Other TRILL Events

TRILL Members

  • Dr. Lal Zimman (he/they)

    Lab Director / PI

    Research interests: trans linguistics, sociophonetics, embodiment, pronouns, trans inclusive language & pedagogy, stance & affect, trans voice training & SLP, online trans communities, drag performance and media, language & social justice

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    Kristy Ali (she/her)

    PhD Candidate, Linguistics

    Research Interests Sign language linguistics, Language documentation and description, Typology, Phonology, Caribbean sign languages, Linguistic ethnography, Tactile languages, Language and social justice

  • Cedar Brown (they/them)

    PhD Candidate, Linguistics

    Research interests: sociocultural linguistics, trans linguistics, computational linguistics, linguistic anthropology, discourse analysis, sociophonetics, trans inclusive language, online trans communities, language and identity, trans/queer theory, community-engaged research

  • Dozandri C. Mendoza (they/them/elle)

    PhD Candidate, Linguistics

    Research interests: sociocultural linguistics, linguistic anthropology, queer/trans Latinx performance, drag and Ballroom culture, patería/Puerto Rican Studies, semiotics, discourse analysis, sociophonetics

  • deandre miles-hercules (they/them)

    PhD Candidate, Linguistics

    Research interests: TBA

  • Marina Zhukova (she/her)

    PhD Candidate, Linguistics

    Research Interests: sociocultural linguistics, computational linguistics, language and identity, language and gender, emoji, co-speech gestures, Russian

  • Solaire Denaud (she/her)

    PhD Student, Comparative Literature

    Research interests: TBA

  • Crystal Gong (they/them)

    PhD Student, East Asian Languages and Cultures, Stanford University

    Research interests: gender and sexuality, and identity, sociophonetics, Japanese, discourse analysis, trans linguistics, and linguistic anthropology

    BA, Language, Culture and Society, UCSB (2022)

  • Nicky Macias (she/ella)

    PhD Student, Linguistics

    Research interests: Sociocultural signed linguistics; signed language interpreting; trans interpreter communities; interpreter ethics; embodiment and interpreting; trans linguistics; signed sociophonetics; language ethnography

  • Marissa Morgan (she/her)

    PhD Student, Linguistics

    Research interests: Sociocultural linguistics; linguistic anthropology; discourse analysis; African-American Language and Culture; embodiment; space and place; language and ritual; discourses of death, grief and mourning

  • Cooper Bedin (they/them)

    MA Student, Linguistics

    Research Interests: sociophonetics, computational linguistics, English second-person pronouns, nonbinary identity talk, trans-affirming statistical methods

  • Montreal Benesch (they/them)

    MA Student, Linguistics

    Reserach Interests: TBA

  • Ece Genc (they/them)

    BA student

    Research interests: TBA

TRILL Alumnx

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    Archie Crowley (they/them) [external]

    PhD, Linguistics (2023), University of South Carolina

    Dissertation: Language Ideologies and Linguistic Activism in Transgender Communities in the U.S. South

    Current affiliation: Elon University

  • Julien De Jesus (they/them)

    MA, Linguistics (2023)

    MA Thesis: “We Need to be Telling Our Own Stories”: Creating a Home for Filipinx Americans in Linguistics

  • Brooke English (it/its)

    MA, Linguistics (2022)

    MA thesis: r/TransVoice: Emotions and Community-Based Voice Training

  • Jazmine Exford

    Jazmine Exford (she/her)

    PhD, Linguistics (2023)

    Dissertation: Raciogendered Embodiment and Indexicality in the Acquisition Experiences of Racialized Spanish Language Learners

    Current affiliation: Assistant Professor of Spanish Linguistics, Florida International University

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    Aris Keshav (they/he)

    MA, Linguistics (2021)

    Current affiliation: Concordia University

    MA thesis: I love you: Normativity, Power, and Romance in Metalinguistic Commentary

  • Jordan Tudisco (they/them)

    PhD, Comparative Literature (2024)

    Dissertation: Staking Our Claim: Self-Making, World-Making and Survival in Trans-Authored Narratives

    Current affiliation: UC Presidential Postdoctoral Scholar, UC Berkeley

  • Chloe Willis

    Chloe Willis (she/they)

    PhD, Linguistics (2023)

    Dissertation: The Theoretical and Methodological Implications of Bisexuality in Language and Sexuality Research

Reviews & testimonials

“Anthropology in ruins.”

–A review of the title (yes, just the title) of our AAA panel, “Pronouns, bottoms, cat-ears, and cuerpes, girl: For an intersectional trans linguistic anthropology” (2022)

Research Areas

Resources