Anne Balay is a lesbian who has worked as a mechanic, truck driver, English professor, writer, and labor organizer. Balay graduated with a PhD in English from the University of Chicago in 1994, after which she became a car mechanic. Though in subsequent years she returned to academia as a professor at the University of Illinois and Indiana University Northwest, she never lost her interest in blue-collar work environments. Balay moved to Gary, Indiana, to teach and was immediately interested in the region’s steel industry. Her coworker and mentor, Jimbo Lane, suggested that she would be well-suited to meeting with and writing about LGBT workers within the mill community, and her book Steel Closets: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Steelworkers  (2014) was born. She then attended commercial truck driving school, earned her commercial driving license, and became a long-distance trucker. In 2015 and 2016, Anne conducted oral histories with LGBT and Black truck drivers that led to her next book, Semi Queer: Inside the World of Gay, Trans, and Black Truck Drivers (2018). Anne was a visiting assistant professor at Haverford College until 2019 and is now an organizer for the Service Employee International Union (SEIU), working with adjunct faculty in Boston. She has two children and three grandchildren. Balay’s essays for OutHistory include:

Blue-Collar Queers, an Introduction to Steel Closets, 2014, by Anne Balay

COVID Quarantine Meditation, May 13, 2020, by Anne Balay

Proud to be Working Class and Queer in 2020, June 11 2020, by Anne Balay

Queer Workers I Have Known, June 16, 2020, by Anne Balay