Crystal Gray

When I think of truck drivers, I often – in fact, almost always – think of big hairy men whose jeans are too tight, who speak with thick Southern accents, whose bellies hang over their belt buckles, whose beards almost always have food stuck in them, and who might be hanging out in the strip joint next to the truck stop hoping for a lap dance from Marla, the blonde bombshell. I’m quite sure I’m not the only one who has these visions, though Marla’s name might be Tiffani in others’ stereotypical images.

My brother is a truck driver. You would think I would know better. He’s quite thin and clean-shaven. He speaks with a Southern accent, but he’s never at a strip bar – at least not one where Marla’s dancing. Unless, of course, Marla’s a drag queen. You see, my brother is a gay trucker.

Recently I met a trans woman named Crystal who just graduated from trucking school – you know, that place where they teach you how to drive an 18-wheeler and help with CDL classes and all that jazz. My partner and I know a lesbian who drives a truck (long-haul, even), but I had never met a trans truck driver. And after reading about the woman who was fired from Old Dominion during her transition, I had mostly decided that trucking was not a place trans women were welcomed.

I started wondering what it is that makes 18-wheelers seem much like the military – a place where gay people might be, but where they sure as hell aren’t loud about it. And then my brother, Trenton, told me what he loved about truck driving. “It’s the freedom of the open road. Nobody standin’ over your shoulder while you work,” he said. And when Crystal echoed similar sentiments, I thought maybe, just maybe, there’s something to this whole trucking business. It’s a place where no boss is breathing down your back, watching your every move, and where your personal life is really between you, your truck, and the road. Quite the opposite of occupations that require working with other people.

I remember my little brother turning everything round into a steering wheel from the time he was two years old. He learned to make car noises long before he could speak, and as we would drive along with me sitting next to him in his car seat, he would be turning that week’s 5-gallon ice cream bucket lid into a steering wheel. The amazing thing? His steering wheel always turned exactly in time with Mom’s. Perhaps he was born to be a truck driver.

As I started writing this article, I thought it would be interesting to interview my brother. He is only two years younger than me, and we are close, but there are things I’ve never asked him – I think I mostly assume I know the answers since we grew up in the same house. But I had never asked him when he knew he wanted to be a truck driver. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he said he’s “always been fascinated with trucks.” And when I think back about all the toy trucks we had, and how careful he always was to put them away neatly, I think – yeah, he kinda always was.

Crystal Gray remembers having two goals at 11 years old. One was to transition to life as a woman. The other was to “drive an 18-wheeler,” she said. When she was small, her family took trips on the interstate a lot, and she entertained herself by “watching the big trucks,” and thinking she would drive one of those someday. After experiencing some transphobic discrimination at her job in Illinois (driving a paratransit bus in Chicago), Crystal recently relocated to North Carolina, and began pursuing her dream of becoming a trucker.

I asked both Trenton and Crystal if they were out to other truckers. Crystal said she was out throughout her training process, and plans to be out as soon as she hits the road. Trenton, on the other hand, said, “No, other truckers don’t know I’m gay. I just don’t wanna have to deal with the hassle of a bunch of idiots.” He also said it is probably easier for him to not be out because he doesn’t really look gay. “I would say it probably is easier because ninety percent of the people stereotype other people until they get to know ‘em,” he said.

Being the worry-wart of an older sister that I am, I had to confess to him that I worry about him all the time because he’s a gay man in a community where I’ve always assumed it’s not safe to be out. I asked him if he ever got scared someone would find out he was gay. “No, there ain’t no way for ‘em to find out,” he said. “Not unless, you know, they’re in the closet and they’re lookin’, I guess, they find out on myspace or somethin’ like that, but then again they have to be lookin’, so they wouldn’t be straight, either. That’d be the only way I could think of findin’ out,” he continued.

Crystal told me she doesn’t worry much, either. Judging from her experience in trucking school, where she was nicknamed “Wild Thing,” and accepted by the male and female truckers-in-training, she said, “I fit right in, and felt at home immediately.” I asked if she thought “Wild Thing” was a derogatory nickname, but she thought it probably was not because another guy was nicknamed “Rollback” because he couldn’t keep his truck from rolling back. She thought that was a far worse nickname than “Wild Thing.”

When they’re not on the road, both Trenton and Crystal have to live in their communities. So I asked them both how those communities reacted. Crystal related stories about people who cheered her on – including family, friends, and members of the trans community she has found since arriving in Asheville. Crystal has been widowed for two years now, but says she knows her wife would have supported her – and still supports her from the other side.

I asked Trenton how his gay friends, in particular, felt about his job. “They kinda think it’s real manly or whatever. They like it – they couldn’t do it, but they think it’s pretty cool. That’s what they say, anyway,” he said. The few boyfriends he’s had since being on the road, however, are a different story. They don’t really like his job because he’s “not home with them,” he said.

I realize as I close out this article that what I started to write was an in-depth look at stereotypes of truck drivers and a better analysis of how they are wrong. But, I suppose what this has become is the story of how my stereotype of truck drivers was broken – the story of a gay man and a trans woman who have neither pot bellies nor beards, but who both share a love of the open road.