2015
Dr. Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award, Lambda Literary
2014
Sara A. Whaley Prize, National Women's Studies Association
A
2015 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
Even
as substantial legal and social victories are being celebrated within
the gay rights movement, much of working-class America still exists
outside the current narratives of gay liberation. In Steel
Closets,
Anne Balay draws on oral history interviews with forty gay, lesbian,
and transgender steelworkers, mostly living in northwestern Indiana,
to give voice to this previously silent and invisible population. She
presents powerful stories of the intersections of work, class,
gender, and sexual identity in the dangerous industrial setting of
the steel mill. The voices and stories captured by Balay--by turns
alarming, heroic, funny, and devastating--challenge contemporary
understandings of what it means to be queer and shed light on the
incredible homophobia and violence faced by many: nearly all of
Balay's narrators remain closeted at work, and many have experienced
harassment, violence, or rape.
Through
the powerful voices of queer steelworkers themselves, Steel
Closets
provides rich insight into an understudied part of the LGBT
population, contributing to a growing body of scholarship that aims
to reveal and analyze a broader range of gay life in America.