Abstract
Steel Closets: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Steelworkers, the 2014 Sara A. Whaley Prize winner from the National Women’s Studies Association, examines LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) and queer steelworkers working in U.S. Steel in Gary, Indiana. Anne Balay notes that very few studies about LGBT people are from the working class and even less so from such a specific blue-collar industry. She interviews more than 40 steelworkers who work in a field that has seen intense upheaval since the 1970s in manufacturing technology and competition from overseas. Many of these workers remain closeted during their working life because of the intense, hazardous, and communal nature of their work and because of the emotional and physical isolation of the mills.
Balay describes the nuanced ways that steel workers frequently policed gay and lesbian steel workers in the mill through informal interactions. These informal, everyday interactions, such as joking, are typically meant to build camaraderie and solidarity. While joking generally serves as a way to ease the tension in such a high-stress environment, it also served as a more insidious mechanism of regulating heteronormativity in the workplace.
Talking and sharing was another mechanism. Because of their understandable reticence about sharing personal details, LGBT steel workers would be seen as “not fitting in.” Similar to Embrick and colleagues’ (2007) study about white working-class bread delivery drivers, these informal interactions were then shared with managers. Interviewees believed the managers in turn denied promotions to lesbian and gay steel workers because they were seen as “not one of the guys.”
Balay argues that U.S. society has seen a significant positive attitudinal shift for middle-class gay men and lesbians. This is not the case for the steel workers in this mill. Heterosexual steelworkers try to maintain a societal position in which they have lost ground and often blame homosexuality. Male steel workers felt that their culture is unappreciated and threatened by outside, undetermined forces, including their perception of the “gay agenda.”
In general, lesbian steel workers, however, were not targeted because of their displays of female masculinity. In the workplace, some of the women were allowed to act butch and dress butch. Balay writes, “It’s less relevant that lesbian steelworkers tend to be masculine than that lesbians have experience being hassled and have learned to handle that without demonstrating weakness” (p. 83). This finding is similar to C. J. Pascoe’s work about female masculinity among adolescent girls.
There are multiple physical and emotional costs of not coming out. Many of the respondents have drug and alcohol problems, health issues related to stress, such as high blood pressure, and heart attacks. Many of the steel workers feared for their lives and discussed oftentimes that they were sexually assaulted or the threat of being left behind on a job. One lesbian discussed “dark spots,” which she referred to as areas where anything could happen.
Balay’s book also discusses the role of unions in the steel industry. She found that the union had not assisted any LGBT steel worker in decreasing sexual assaults, harassment, stigma, and violence. She notes two respondents who went to the union for assistance regarding sexual harassment and assault. However, the union failed to intercede on behalf of these workers. Lacking the support by the union, LGBT steel workers felt increased stress that added to their already complex health issues.
There are some limitations of this study. I would have liked to see a discussion of how her study would impact other blue-collar, male-dominated workplaces, especially relating to health. Thorpe and Kelley-Moore (2012) have described the weathering hypothesis, which focuses on how stress can accelerate health declines for Blacks. Balay’s book suggests a similar mechanism, but I would have liked to see more discussion of the health declines and the links to invisibility of a steel mill’s sexual identity.
Ultimately, Steel Closets’s biggest contribution to the literature is the exploration of the invisibility of LGBT identity in the male-dominated workplace of the steel mill. Steel Closets is highly accessible, readable, and relies on rich quotes from the LGBT steel workers. Overall, this book would be a must-have book for courses in sociology of gender, sociology of LGBT, and sociology of work.