PLEASE NOTE: This is a minimally-edited transcript that originates from a program that uses AI.
Anita Rao
This is Embodied, from PRX and WUNC. I’m Anita Rao.
The face of the long-haul trucking industry has long been white and male. But that’s slowly shifting. And among the changing demographics, there’s one cohort that’s gaining visibility: LGBTQ truckers... who note the unique appeal of the job.
Anne Balay
He knew when he went out on the road, he could become the trans man that he was and eventually wanted to be full-time ... as soon as you're out on the road, you know that no one you've ever seen before will see you.
Anita Rao
Today we’ll hear stories of trans and queer long-haul truckers. A former trucker and academic tells us about the folks she met on the road, and a 24-year old trans trucker shares why she’s committing to the profession despite its reputation.
Ashleigh Lewis
Trucking is one of those industries where if you are built for it, you are. Yeah. If you are not, chucking will chew you up and spit you out.
Anita Rao
Queer truckers on the open road... Just ahead on Embodied.
The long haul trucking industry draws in drivers by promising an open road, the freedom to travel the country, and the opportunity to take their career into their own hands. It's a profession that one former trucker calls a haven for misfits.
Anne Balay
That's why truckers are so fun. They're not people who behave in boring, formulaic ways. They're people who wanna make their own path and don't follow the rules that are set down by society.
Anita Rao
That's Anne Balay. Anne got into long haul trucking while on her own non-traditional career path. She's an activist and teacher who's researched and written about queer blue collar workers. When she became a trucker, she joined a particular community of trucking misfits, LGBTQ truckers. The trucking industry is still predominantly white and male, but as Anne immersed herself into big re culture, she started to meet other queer people who, like her, saw the unique appeal of this profession.
Anne Balay
In so many cases, because you're in a truck, you have. A freedom that you wouldn't have as a queer or trans prison in any other public space. Um, you're in an enormous machine taking up a ton of space, being in public space, and yet completely invisible.
Anita Rao
This is embodied our show about sex, relationships, and health. I am Anita Rao. Long Haul trucking is not an easy gig. Many drivers are paid by the mile and work 14 hour days, spending weeks at a time on the road, away from home and family. While the salary can be decent later in a career, the early years are often brutal and can lead to burnout. So why are queer and trans folks not only leaning into, but really claiming this profession and becoming an increasingly visible group? We'll explore that today through the lens of Anne's research and a conversation with a young trans trucker. First, Anne's story.
So you got a PhD in English in the early nineties. Since then, you have spent time working in both blue and white collar jobs, kind of weaving in and out of these spheres. Uh, you worked as a car mechanic, you taught as a professor, you wrote a book about queer steel workers. Then you got into truck driving. I would love to know what the appeal was of trucking in particular for you as a queer person with this background.
Anne Balay
I got laid off from my job as a faculty member, and principally that was because I wrote about queer blue collar workers. You don't get tenured for that. Anyway, I couldn't get a new job in my professional field. I was running out of money. I was running out of ideas, and I have always loved cars and engines and driving. There was a trucking school near my house in Gary, Indiana. So I just went over just to check, and I think they're used to that. So they suggested that I climb up into the cab of a truck, and as soon as I was in that seat, I knew that it was for me. Hmm. It felt so right and powerful and fun. And so I signed up that day and I started classes.
Anita Rao
So as you got immersed in this trucking world, you started to meet other queer truckers. What did you uncover about the size and scope of the queer trucking community?
Anne Balay
Oh, there's a ton of us Uhhuh, um, lesbians and trans women principally, or certainly those are the ones that I identified visually. There's probably a lot of gay men, but I'm less good at picking them out of a crowd, so, and because I had just written about queer steelworkers who are very hidden, it was fun to see how out. Queer and trans truckers are not hiding, easily identifiable, easy to run into. So it was just fun to meet these people and become part of that community.
Anita Rao
As you started interviewing these folks, you even rode along with some people. What were some of the reasons that you heard from them about why they sought out this profession as queer people in particular?
Anne Balay
A lot of people had had jobs where they were hassled, harassed, fired. For being queer or trans, and they were gravitated to trekking because as one of them said, if you can put your butt in the seat, you can get it to work. Like it's not a situation where you have to look a certain way and feel acceptable, like literally they're hiring if you will show up and sit there and. Drive. It's not like a first choice occupation. Mm-hmm. It's what you do if you're kind of running out of options and you think, okay, maybe that'll work. So a lot of people of color, queer trans people who something else hasn't worked out, wound up trucking.
Anita Rao
So you said that there was a sizable minority of truckers who were trans women. I'd love to hear about someone who you met on the road that really sticks with you, who maybe illuminates the draw to this work for trans women in particular.
Anne Balay
One funny story I got from a friend of mine who was driving through Utah one night, and Utah is not a place that you feel comfortable in as a queer person. But she went to the bathroom and she, you know, emerged from the stall and it was washing her hands in the bathroom sink and realized that all of the people in that bathroom were trans women. Oh, wow. I know. And she just like said it became this sort of. Catch up social set setting where they were just hanging out in that bathroom for hours, talking about life on the road as a trans woman. And it's just so ironic that that happened in Utah, which is not a friendly space for any kind of queer or gender non-conforming. But there is this growing body of trans women who then seek out each other. But there's also a huge increase in the fear that trans women live with in public space. Right. Especially now. So, so many trans women that I know of talk about having to look angry and fierce whenever they enter any public space, like a truck stop in order to deflect harassment or violence. So it is shaping the way they present themselves. And the way that they are perceived.
Anita Rao
Hmm. That's really interesting. What is going on in the trucking industry at the moment that is really driving this diversification of the profession that is creating these opportunities that trans folks and queer folks are filling?
Anne Balay
So 50 years ago, trucking was a good job that paid well and gave you independence and freedom, and that's when it was dominated by white men who were mostly in the teamsters and. Happy being truckers, but over the last 50 years, a whole network of regulations and government changes have made the job much different. So now the pay is very low, the hours are very long, and technology and a system of rules make their. Just be a ton of micromanagement in the industry. So now, instead of being a well-paid job, that gives you some freedom. It's a poorly paid job that just manages every second of everything you do all the time. So like in any labor situation, when a job gets terrible. White men leave it and the people who can't get better work flood in. So people enter the trucking industry who wouldn't have been able to get work in it 50 years ago. You know, it's good for queers to have industries open that didn't use to be, but it's also not good because the job is so much less fun, free and well paying than it used to be.
Anita Rao
How as you rode along with. People, how, how did you observe the way that they were received by the larger trucking community? As these demographics are shifting along with kind of the broader context that trucking is operating in?
Anne Balay
That varies a lot so. It depends on where you are. So when I traveled with a another visibly lesbian person in a truck and we drove through Utah, there was an instance where we went to Denny's like you do, and we could not get seated, we could not get served. Mm. And she said to me, I come here all the time, one of us doesn't get that much attention. But now that there are two of us, we're not gonna get a table. Hmm. So. The visibility was increased by, you know, it couldn't just be like one person who was dressed funny, but like we became visibly lesbian in that context, because there were two of us.
Anita Rao
I know that in addition to queer truckers, you also spoke with a number of black truck drivers. For folks who were at that intersection of queerness and blackness, what was their experience like? Are there any particular stories that come to mind?
Anne Balay
Oh, yeah. Being a a non-white trucker is a dicey business. Mm-hmm. I talked to one trucker who was a black woman who had been in the industry for, uh, she's a 3 million mile trucker. Wow. So she's been in the industry for a long time. She told the story of one time someone tried to run her over, but it's usually not quite that overt. It's usually just. Being not acknowledged, not served, like I said, at Denny's, sort of made to feel like you do not belong in that public space.
Anita Rao
What is community building like? I mean, I imagine it's a very transient kind of job. You're, you don't get to control necessarily where you might stop or what routes you might go on. How do queer truckers build community with one another?
Anne Balay
The internet? Yeah. I mean, they're Facebook groups or TikTok channels where truckers connect with each other. But you're right, one of the appeals of the job is the. Unpredictability and anonymity of the encounters. Like there was one trans man that I interviewed who was a trans man while trucking, but not trans at home. Mm-hmm. Married to a man who was also a trucker. And he knew when he went out on the road, he could become the trans man that he was and eventually wanted to be full-time and would never run into his husband. Like he just knew that that was not a risk. And that just kind of hit me as a way of saying that there isn't community that happens by people like sharing routes, or as soon as you're out on the road, you know that no one. You've ever seen before, we'll see you, and that really shapes the culture out there.
Anita Rao
Just ahead, we'll hear more from Anne Bailey about queer trucking culture, including what drivers told her about why they stay in the industry despite all its challenges, and we'll learn what life is like for a 24-year-old trans truck driver just starting in the business. You're listening to Embodied from North Carolina Public Radio, a broadcast service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can also hear Embodied as a podcast. Follow and subscribe on your platform of choice. We'll be right back.
This is Embodied. I am Anita Rao. Today we're talking about the long haul trucking industry and why LGBTQ folks in particular are drawn to the profession, writer and activist. Anne Bailey gained insight into queer trucking culture in the mid 2010s. She drove a truck professionally for a few months, then spent time on the road with other queer truckers collecting oral histories and hanging out at truck stops. Those stories are in her book, semi Queerer. Inside the world of gay, trans and Black truck drivers, the trucking industry and political climate have changed quite a bit in the decade since Anne did her research, but she's been tracking the challenges facing queer truckers by staying in touch with some of the folks she interviewed for her book.
One of the things I was wondering about is we are in a moment where state by state regulations are beginning to look pretty different when it comes to LGBTQ Rights and truckers are folks that are traversing different states at different times. How does this kind of web of changing policy affect how queer and trans truckers do their jobs?
Anne Balay
Truckers have little to no say about where they go. Mm-hmm. So they're doing their jobs in the same way, but the level of fear that they live with varies a lot based on where they get sent. So there's definitely increased fear about some locations, particularly around bathrooms, but also around. Open carry laws. So if you're going to a state where you might be challenged in the bathroom and it's a state that has open carry laws, you're literally pretty scared that you're gonna be shot. And just living with that amount of fear adds to the stress that truckers work under in just really, really extreme ways. Like I've talked to several truckers who are just so. Scared. Yeah. About being able to do their jobs in particular locations and nothing is done to protect them. And they know that if they're killed, no one would care. So that, that's just a lot to live with day to day in terms of their kind of life qualities out on the road.
Anita Rao
When I hear you talking about that, I think about the. Really high rate of burnout also in the profession, and we're gonna be talking a little later in the show with a younger queer trucker. I'm wondering about the age of this profession. Like are the age demographics changing? Is it becoming younger or older? Are there differences in, in how this moment is being experienced by age?
Anne Balay
Yeah. I mean, in terms of turnover in the profession, the turnover rates, as you know, are incredibly high. But that's mostly because training is so terrible. Most people don't get enough training to survive their first year. I mean, I was laid off. During my first year, which is extremely common, and it's because the training is haphazard at best, often extremely dangerous, and then people are pushed out onto the road before we're really ready to do the job. Yeah. So a ton of young people enter the industry, but most of them also leave within a year. So the profession is definitely aging. Like many truckers that I know of are over 60. Then there's a sort of a falling off. So there are fewer middle age truckers and there's a lot of new young truckers coming in, but they often don't last. And the job, you know, earlier I said it pays terribly. If you've managed to survive for three or four years, you make a good living. The terrible pay is sort of an average because the first few years, the pay is terrible. And then if you can stick it out, it gets better. But the amount of people who get past the first few years is very few, so that's why there's so many older truckers, because we need truckers and it's hard to bring new people into the industry because those first few years are so challenging
Anita Rao
For those who do stay, who make it, you know, beyond that. Year mark, make it beyond the five year mark, maybe even 10 year mark. Like what did you hear about why, like why do they keep going? Why do they stay despite kind of all of the challenges that we've talked about?
Anne Balay
Yeah, so it's hard to describe why people stay, but most of the people that I know who stay do it because they love the work. So it takes you to interesting places. And you feel like you're doing something meaningful and important. Uh, one of the truckers that I know well frequently delivers to the US mint. And so it's very exciting to have to drive an enormous truck down the sort of teeny tiny alleys of urban Philadelphia and that. She's just really excited and proud to talk about how hard that is and how she does it. There's just something really satisfying about the job, even physically, like there's 14 gears and when you switch between one of them and the other sort of series, there's this lever on the shifter that releases air and it goes and just that sound. Carries so much meaning for them about like what they're able to do and how well they do it. I don't know. It's hard to describe, but it is very satisfying to do this really important, really difficult thing. Well, and they're just very proud that they can do that and they in many cases won't give it up. You know, they'll literally say, I wanna die doing this. It's very rewarding. Once you. You know, learn how to do it. Like learning how to reverse a truck is the hardest thing I've ever done. And when I did it, I just wanted to sing and dance when I finally got it.
Anita Rao
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for talking with me, sharing your personal story and all the stories you've collected on the road. I really appreciate the conversation.
Anne Balay
Oh, well, thank you very much.
Anita Rao
Anne's reflections from her time in the trucking industry. Paint a picture of an aging workforce and an environment that can be both rewarding and hostile to LGBTQ drivers. So what compels a young, queer or trans person to enter this profession?
Ashleigh Lewis
It's the freedom of being on the road. That's the most rewarding part for me, is being free and living a dream that I wanted to achieve since I was little.
Anita Rao
That's Ashleigh Lewis, a third generation truck driver and a trans woman. Ashleigh is 24 years old and started her professional truck driving career last December. She'll also be the subject of a documentary about her trucking life by filmmaker Hansen Bursic in true trucker fashion. Ashleigh joined me for a conversation while driving on a highway somewhere in southern Georgia.
So I'm talking to you, you're doing an interview while on the road. I'm guessing that's not usually how you spend the time in the truck. What are you usually doing when you're on these long stretches?
Ashleigh Lewis
Um, I usually will either listen to podcasts or listen to audio books, the radio, music, everything. Basically. Except for watching videos going down the highway, because that's, you're not supposed to do that.
Anita Rao
So let's talk about how you got into this work. I know that it is a family profession. There are a couple of generations of truck drivers Before you, when did you like growing up as a kid, did you ever think that you wanted to become a truck driver?
Ashleigh Lewis
Absolutely. I have always wanted to drive a truck ever since I was a little kid. It has always been a passion of mine. I would get so happy going down the road and seeing semis and having them blow their horn and stuff like that. My dad used to take me to the, uh, local truck stop in town and we would go and drive around the truck stop and I would get out and I would talk to the drivers and they would put me up in their truck. They would let me inside of the cab of their truck, and I would sit there and grab onto the steering wheel and just all kinds of stuff. I mean, I was a little kid. It was so much fun, and they were so big and so intriguing. I remember this one driver, he was an older gentleman. I don't remember his name. I was probably four or five at the time, so I don't really remember names. But he had a, uh, long nosed Peter belt with a stretched out sleeper, and it was huge on the inside. It had like a shower and a bathroom and all this stuff inside of it, and he ran solo.
Anita Rao
Mm.
Ashleigh Lewis
And I think he was out, I think. He had been in for 25 years at that time.
Anita Rao
Oh wow.
Ashleigh Lewis
And he was the owner operator.
Anita Rao
So you had this kind of early exposure to trucking culture. You had like physically been in trucks, you had hung out at truck stops. You had heard some stories from your dad. Um. As you went through your life into your teen years, you came out as trans in your late teens. I'm curious to know about how that transition shaped your thoughts about the future, like what you wanted to do for work or whether it affected your thoughts about like big life decisions that you were gonna make.
Ashleigh Lewis
Um, the thought of being trans and the actions associated with it was. Very rough at the start trying to figure everything out and trying to figure out what I was going to do. And I knew trucking being the industry that it is, was very male dominated, very not LGBTQ plus friendly.
Anita Rao
Mm-hmm.
Ashleigh Lewis
So my nerves were kind of going with the thought of it and I was like, at that time I was like, well maybe things will change in time. That's why I kind of decided to wait. And during the whole time of starting my transition and everything, I found the LGBTQ plus truck driver network.
Anita Rao
Tell me about that.
Ashleigh Lewis
So I was living on my own in West Tennessee and I was scrolling through Facebook one day and I was like, I just popped in the search bar on Facebook. I was like, just LGBTQ Truck driver groups. The first one to pop up just so happened to be the lgbtq plus truck driver network. So I joined the group and I just kind of stayed in the background. I was just kind of seeing what all they did and they had weekly Zoom meetings as far as just like plans for the future, what they were going to do and everything else. And I felt so involved. Like I want, like a part of me wanted to do more and wanted to go with the organization and see what all it could afford and bring me,
Anita Rao
Even though you hadn't started trucking yourself yet.
Ashleigh Lewis
Exactly, so, and that's when I talked to the founder of the organization, Bobby, me and him were talking on the phone and I was like, I'm not a truck driver. And he was like, our organization isn't only for truck drivers. He said, it's for everybody. He said, we tailored towards truck drivers, but we include everybody. Nobody is excluded from our group. And I told 'em about my want to go into trucking and stuff like that, and. He was supportive completely, 100%. And he said, I think it would be a great industry, he said, for you to go into, especially being trans, and some of the companies have medical benefits for trans drivers and a lot of trans drivers transition inside of their truck. Hmm. They go for surgery, they heal out here on the road, going down the highway, pulling loads and making money.
Anita Rao
So take me, I'm, I'm thinking about you kind of sitting, you know, you click join to the, to the Facebook group and before that moment you had thought like, trucking is probably not gonna be a place for queer and trans folks. It's pretty male. Like, I don't know how I'm gonna. Make it in that world, being myself. Tell me about kind of what started to shift for you as you got into that group and, and started talking to, to Bobby. Like what started to happen in terms of your own process of thinking about driving?
Ashleigh Lewis
I got to meet other trans people in the industry already. Just everyone that I talked to as a whole, like they just really helped with, you know, the thoughts and everything else of going into trucking. Which was nerve wracking for me because I'm like, I am brand new to transitioning and everything else. I was 20 at the time. I had no idea what I wanted to do long term. I was like, I know trucking was gonna be there if I wanted to go, but I had no specific direction at that time. And a lot of those drivers were like, I think trucking would be a good direction for you to go in. And I was like, but what about the, all the stereotypes and everything else? And they're like, it's not as. Bad out here, as you may think it is. They're like, yes, stuff does happen out here on the road, but it's very few and far between.
Anita Rao
What was the turning point for you of deciding to pursue this for your own career?
Ashleigh Lewis
So, going back a little bit, as Bobby and I were talking and stuff like this, Bobby was like, you know what? He was like, come down here to Florida. He said, yeah, we'll get you a job and everything else. And he's now, him and his husband Ricky are my chosen family. And that's something else that I wasn't expecting to find was a family that actually does love and accept me for who I am specifically.
Anita Rao
Mm-hmm. So you moved in with Bobby and his husband. You kind of had that support to get your CDL, your commercial driver's license. And you, you've done a couple of different Facebook videos where you talked about your experience in trucking school and kind of shared the, some of the processes that you have to go through. And in one of the videos you mentioned that there is a time where you have to be on the road with a mentor for 18 days to kind of like get that experience with someone observing you. And you mentioned that you were planning to have a conversation with your instructor to make sure that the mentor. Was gonna be in the truck with you was okay being in a truck with a trans person. How did that experience end up going for you?
Ashleigh Lewis
So that experience went very well. I didn't go like over the road with a trainer.
Anita Rao
Mm-hmm.
Ashleigh Lewis
So the way that that company trained people, all of the women drivers would go to one place and they were be, they would be put in a hotel, they. Back in the hotel room every night and they put me with them, which I was happy about, but I was also kind of surprised in a way because I was like, okay, so they are recognizing me as a trans woman driver, because that was one thing I was nervous about was, well, you know what happens if I'm out on the road with a trainer and they don't like the fact that I'm trans or. Like, what if something bad happens to me and then I'm eight, 900, a thousand miles away from home and I can't get home?
Anita Rao
Yeah.
Ashleigh Lewis
Like it was just a bunch of questions that was just rushing through my mind. And then whenever I actually got to training, everything was very smooth.
Anita Rao
And there wasn't a conversation you needed to have, it just kind of went the way you hoped it would.
Ashleigh Lewis
Right, exactly. Um, actually, I did end up telling my mentor, Hey, I'm a trans woman. If you have an issue with that, then I might need to find another trainer. And I told him that from the beginning. As soon as I got in the truck with him, and I told him, and he was like, I don't care. He said, you're here to do a job. I'm here to train you. He's like, at the end of the day, as long as you're happy, then what difference does it make to me?
Anita Rao
I wanna hear what that experience was like the first time you were the one in the driver's seat out on your own. Tell me about it.
Ashleigh Lewis
I'm not even gonna lie, I was nervous. Uhhuh, I was as far over in the right lane as you could get and I was going like 40. I was terrified. And my trainer's like, Hey, you are on an interstate. We do need to bump the seat up a little bit. And I'm sitting here like, I'm white knuckling it. It is perfect driving conditions. The roads are completely dry. And it was so funny because he is over there, he's like. I thought you've been around trucks your whole life. And I said, I have been. And he was like, then why are you so nervous? I said, because it is a world, a huge world of difference going from sitting in the passenger seat to sitting in the driver's seat. Mm. It's two completely different experiences. And I slowly sit there and I got more comfortable as time elapsed and stuff like that. It was, I got more comfortable with everything. And thank goodness I have, you know, Bobby and Ricky and Derek, which is the VP of the LGBTQ plus truck driver network. And if you know I ever had any questions or that I could just give one of them a call, one of them is always up driving.
Anita Rao
Well, tell me about like the, the community piece of it all. Like you had started to connect with other. Drivers before you started driving, once you were on the job, how did you begin to build community and and friendships on the road?
Ashleigh Lewis
Building community and friendships on the road has actually been hard.
Anita Rao
Hmm.
Ashleigh Lewis
Because most of the people that I was either in school with or met in orientation and stuff like that, while we're all out here on the road, so like we all talk on the phone a couple times a week, sometimes, some of us talk every day. But overall it's. I think we all can fully actually understand what each other is going through out here on the road because we're all living it on a daily basis. We're all out here on the road. We're all running between 2000 to 3000 miles a week.
Anita Rao
What is it that like your friends on the road get about your life that other people just don't like? Ways that it's been really helpful to have that community of other truckers.
Ashleigh Lewis
Honestly, the best thing that most of them have done is help keep me awake and just keep me up. Focus.
Anita Rao
Yeah.
Ashleigh Lewis
You know, like we all get tired. I mean, you're sitting in a seat driving for, you know, 11 hours a day.
Anita Rao
Yeah.
Ashleigh Lewis
So it gets boring, it gets lonely. And just having that companionship, even though we could be on opposite ends of the country, but just knowing that somebody is there that I can talk to if I need to talk to somebody. Yeah. Means the world.
Anita Rao
It's interesting to hear you say that it can feel lonely. 'cause I feel like there's a way that truck driving is like super romanticized as like, oh, you get all of this time alone with your thoughts and like the open road. But also, yeah, I'm sure it can be lonely at times.
Ashleigh Lewis
If your mind is anything like mine, you keep it in a locked box, you don't let it come out.
Anita Rao
So you're looking for distraction in talking to other people.
Ashleigh Lewis
Exactly. Exactly. And you can kind of get lost, like you're still focusing on the road and everything around you, but you kind of get lost in the conversation.
Anita Rao
Yeah.
Ashleigh Lewis
And it kind of takes your mind off of. Everything that's worrying you because you're worrying about your bills, your car, payments, house, you know, all this stuff while you're out here on the road and just having that companionship from a friend or a significant other, stuff like that, it, it helps.
Anita Rao
Just ahead, we'll talk with Ashleigh about the things she is worried about as a trans woman on the road and how she thinks about her future in this career. We'll be right back.
This is Embodied. I am Anita Rao. There are as many as 500,000 long haul truck drivers in the us and while there are no hard stats on the number of L-G-B-T-Q people in trucking, their stories and role in the profession, our growing and visibility, we learned earlier about broad trends in the queer trucking community. And we're talking now about day-to-day life with Ashley Lewis, a 24-year-old trans woman and truck driver. Ashley drives refrigeration, which means she runs routes coast to coast. On a typical day, she wakes up, does her 15 minute pre-check, make sure everything is working with her brakes, tires, and engine oil. Then off she goes, taking a 30 minute break at least every eight hours. Until she finds somewhere to park or reaches her allowed quota of road time when she parks for the night or takes a mandatory 34 hour reset, Ashley often finds herself at a truck stop.
Ashleigh Lewis
The etiquette in a truck stop is still pretty much the same no matter where you go. A lot of them have laundry rooms. Mm-hmm. So you can actually go in there and do your laundry, like if you need to do laundry. They have driver lounges, so you can actually get outta your truck if you want to go in there and sit down and watch TV and watch a movie, whatever. They also have showers, which whenever we get fuel, normally we end up getting free showers with the fuel, which, unless you're owner operator, you don't pay for fuel.
Anita Rao
I'm curious about, about that kind of in terms of a safety perspective. I mean, we talked about how going into this, you knew that the industry is mostly male and, and you didn't know exactly how safe you were gonna feel. Like how do you think about your safety as a trans and as a fem presenting truck driver when you're at these truck stops?
Ashleigh Lewis
You have to keep your head on a swivel
Anita Rao
uhhuh
Ashleigh Lewis
Once it gets dark out. Unless I'm driving, I do not, I don't get outta my truck at night.
Anita Rao
Oh, wow.
Ashleigh Lewis
Because anybody can be, anybody can stand in between the trailers and snatch you and then that's it.
Anita Rao
Is that something that has happened to people, you know, like that is something you're actually, that's like, feels like a, not
Ashleigh Lewis
anyone that I know in particular, but I have heard stories. Okay. Of that happening to, uh, even just regular women drivers. Not even trans drivers. And most of the time in most of the areas, you know, if you're okay to get out at night or not. Yeah. Uh, around the bigger cities, no. But if you're in a lot of these smaller, more rural towns, it's normally not as bad. I say normally there are some parts, but overall it's not as bad. There is one truck stop in particular that all of us know that is not trans-friendly and that is Tiger Truck stop in Louisiana. Okay. There's been a lot of trans drivers that have been killed there. Mm. Last time I think I heard it was like, I think seven or eight trans drivers have been killed there.
Anita Rao
Oh wow.
Ashleigh Lewis
Yeah. That's one truck stop I have passed by it on the interstate, but I will not stop there. I won't even stop in there just to use the bathroom and grab a cup of coffee. Mm-hmm. I'll just go to the next one. Especially knowing that that's happened to trans drivers there,
Anita Rao
have you felt more or less safe as you've spent more time on the road? Like has your behavior changed?
Ashleigh Lewis
Um, I think, honestly, I was so nerve wracked at first when I first started driving because of the unknown uhhuh now that I've actually been out here. Not to say that something couldn't happen, but I haven't had anything bad happen yet. So I think. I've let my guard down a little bit since being out here, like my guard is still very much so up. When I'm out here, most of the time people say I'm unapproachable. They'll just sit there. They'll like kinda like wave and say hi, and then that's about it. Like they won't actually strike up a conversation with me. I just kinda have that like, I guess, I don't know. I guess I just have like this look that I put out to the world whenever I'm on the road, like, don't talk to me, don't look at me, kind of thing. I don't wanna, I don't wanna talk to you. Don't bother me. And so I guess that helps.
Anita Rao
You mentioned earlier like that there are trans folks who come to this profession because like you can recover in your truck, like while you're out on the road, recover from surgery or like have other kind of experiences of autonomy in the truck. I'm curious to know more about that, like some of the reasons that you've heard from other trans folks about why they choose this profession.
Ashleigh Lewis
From what I've gathered. It's because a lot of them don't have family. A lot of their family since they came out has like alienated them and they live their lives alone. So they're like, okay, well trucking is a job where I can be alone and I don't even have to deal with people.
Anita Rao
Yeah.
Ashleigh Lewis
If I don't want to, like the only people I had to deal with that here on the road is shippers, receivers, and at truck stops and just the general motoring public. But other than that, that's it. So I think. That's a lot of the reasons.
Anita Rao
Yeah.
Ashleigh Lewis
Besides the well-known stuff about trucking, that the pay is good and you know, the medical benefits and stuff like that, which the pay in your first year is not what they tell you it's gonna be. I can tell you that already. Everybody's like, oh, I'm projected to make like 50,000 in my first year trucking. I was like, you will be lucky to hit 30. It's not what everybody makes it out to be. It's a very rewarding job. Do not get me wrong. I love what I do. Absolutely love what I do. I wouldn't do anything else besides trucking.
Anita Rao
I, I wanna know why you say that. Like what, what is so rewarding about it?
Ashleigh Lewis
It's the freedom of being on the road. I have done fast food, I've done customer service, I've done retail and all these other professions, and I love, I've loved every profession I've ever been in, but trucking has always had my heart and. It's amazing. It has not been nice to me. I've had breakdown after breakdown. I've had just stuff happen, random stuff happen. Um, but it's trucking unfortunately. I mean, and that's the only way that I can even describe it is you hear a driver say, well, that's trucking. It is how it is.
Anita Rao
I wanna talk about where you are in your transition and how that affects the driving experience. I know that you transitioned socially before you started driving, but have you been able to like change your driver's license to reflect your name and gender identity yet?
Ashleigh Lewis
I have not gotten to do any of that yet. Okay. Especially now living in Florida. They've basically gotten rid of all that stuff.
Anita Rao
Oh, okay.
Ashleigh Lewis
It doesn't bother me that my government name and marker is on there. It doesn't bother me. The person who I was before will always still be a part of me, and I'm not ashamed of who that person is. That person got me through a lot of hard times.
Anita Rao
Do you have to show your ID at. Any point along your routes? Does it ever come up, or, or is it, yes. Okay. What is that like? It ha
Ashleigh Lewis
it happens all the time. Most people don't even say anything about it. I have never actually been clocked at a shipper or receiver for it.
Anita Rao
Hmm.
Ashleigh Lewis
Nobody's ever said anything to me.
Anita Rao
So you are heading home now after a long stint on the road. I'm curious about how this schedule of not being in the same place for a long time has shaped your dating life.
Ashleigh Lewis
So I am currently in a relationship. Okay. He is amazing. We do not live together. He lives in South Carolina, so I alternate my home time. So one home time, I'll go home to South Carolina with him and then the other one, I'll go home to Florida and I just alternate back and forth and it's worked for us so far.
Anita Rao
How long have y'all been together?
Ashleigh Lewis
We have been together, we have been talking since October of last year, so before I actually started trucking.
Anita Rao
Oh, okay.
Ashleigh Lewis
So he has been with me through the entire process.
Anita Rao
Oh wow.
Ashleigh Lewis
That was one thing that I talked to him about and like we had, we sat down and we had a serious hard, dark conversation about it and I was like, look, I was like, being with a driver is not easy. It's a lot of lonely nights. You know, I was just talking on the phone and FaceTiming and stuff like that while I'm out here on the road. And I told him, I said, if you cannot handle that, then we probably won't work. I was, I'm very upfront whenever it comes to stuff like that because I'm like, I don't wanna get involved with somebody and then, you know, six months later I can't handle this anymore kind of thing. And like we didn't, neither one of us knew how this was even gonna go. Like it was new for the both of us. So we were just kind of like growing and changing with it as we go along. And I love that because it works for both of us so far.
Anita Rao
Have you come up with any like routines or things that you do to stay connected when you're gone for those long stretches?
Ashleigh Lewis
Um, we normally talk on the phone a couple times a day,
Anita Rao
Uhhuh,
Ashleigh Lewis
and he works. So whenever he's at work, I'll just like, like when I stop or something like that, I'll be like, Hey, I'm stopping my 30. Love you kind of thing. And he'll respond whenever he gets a chance. Um, but no, so far everything is going good. We both enjoy our own personal space. So it's like whenever I come in I'm like, we love like crazy. And then I go back out on the road. It's like by the time that, you know, those couple days are up, it's like, love you, but I gotta go kind of thing. And then we go back to, you know, like FaceTiming and talking on the phone and stuff like that. So it's, it works for us for now and in the future if something changes and I can't handle being out here OTR or whatever the case may be, there are options in trucking that I can take,
Anita Rao
like to be closer to home.
Ashleigh Lewis
Like, I can go from OTR to regional or be on a dedicated lane or local and be home every night. I mean, there are options, but so far I can't see myself doing anything about being OTR. I love getting to travel. I've always been the person that loves traveling. I would literally just hop in my car and I would go, just drive for a couple hours, didn't care where I ended up, didn't. I would just sit there and I would go get lost, is what I would call it. I'm just gonna go get lost. I'll find my way home, it'll be fine. Driving is what gives me the most comfort and a lot of people is like, I don't know how driving makes you comfortable. It gives me anxiety and everything else, and I'm like driving relaxes me. Mm-hmm. I can actually clear my thoughts and listen to the, you know, worrying of the tires on the asphalt and listen to the sound of the turbo whenever it pulls up. And stuff like that. Like it's amazing. I can't describe it. It's one of those things that you don't understand it until you actually do it and you're in it.
Anita Rao
So you've been at it now for like half of a year, and I know that statistically like. Lots of drivers leave even after just like a few months. Like I read a study that said that like 70% of new drivers leave the industry in the first three months. That is such a high number. So it seems like it can be Yes. Like a, a high burnout job.
Ashleigh Lewis
Trucking is one of those industries where if you are built for it, you are. Yeah. If you are not, chucking will chew you up and spit you out. And I don't normally like using that terminology, but it is the truth. If it's meant for you, you'll know.
Anita Rao
Is there a moment that you've experienced on the road recently where you felt like it affirmed that fact, that you knew that this is the career for you?
Ashleigh Lewis
Honestly, once I hit my one wall with trucking
Anita Rao
Mm-hmm. Because
Ashleigh Lewis
I did, I was running hard. I ran for I think five or six weeks straight, and I, I hit a brick wall with it and I was like, I've. You'll know that feeling whenever it hits you. It's just one of those things that's like, you're just like, no, I've gotta go home. And a lot of drivers in that moment when they hit that wall, they quit because they're like, oh, I can't do this. And it's like, take your home time. You need a break from the truck, and you do being cooped up in a eight by eight box for 3, 4, 5, 6, however many weeks at a time. Sometimes some drivers stay out for six or eight months and go home. Like, it just depends on how they run. I know of a couple drivers that they live in the truck, they don't have a home.
Anita Rao
Wow.
Ashleigh Lewis
They live full-time outta the truck. And I was like, you are better than me. I could not, I would lose it. I mean, were they a little nutty? Yeah. I can safely say that they were sweetest. Get me, don't get me wrong, but they, you could tell they had a couple screws loose. Their ducks were all not in a row.
Anita Rao
So you hit that wall. You kind of found your way back. I'm curious if there's any advice that you got from your mentors, like Bobby or, or folks who were there for you at the beginning of this journey about how to make this into a longer term career.
Ashleigh Lewis
Most of 'em are just like stay at it. I mean, that's the only way that, that's honestly like that's the only thing like. Not one specific person has actually sat there and sat down and been like, this is how you can make trucking work for you. Like trucking. It's one of those industries that either works for you or it doesn't.
Anita Rao
Yeah,
Ashleigh Lewis
I'm very stubborn. I do not give up easily, and I think that's where a lot of new drivers, especially whenever they're coming in for three months and then they can't handle it anymore, and then they leave, you have to be stubborn enough to stick with it because in the end, if you stick with it, it is rewarding. It will reward you, but you have to stick with it. If you give up in your first, you know, three to six months, then you've never, you didn't give trucking a full opportunity to show you exactly what it can be.
Anita Rao
What would you say to other trans folks who are thinking about this as a potential career path?
Ashleigh Lewis
Do it. I have no regrets at all about coming out here on the road. I have seen the sunrise coming over the Atlantic, and I've seen the sunset in the desert of, you know, Colorado or the High Plains of Colorado, whichever, whatever you wanna call it. I was still on the flat side of Colorado. I didn't hit the Rockies yet. Um, but I mean, I've gotten to see gorgeous skylines. Uh, Denver has one of the prettiest skylines that I've ever seen. I, I can't recommend it enough. Honestly, and people, some people think I'm crazy and that's fine if they think that. I always tell people, I'm the one crazy trans woman that you other love or hate. I'll let you decide. I do. And I mean, I'm sorry, but a part of me feels that you can't be completely sane and think driving 80,000 pounds down the road is a perfect idea. I think you have to have one or two screws loose.
Anita Rao
Well, I am so glad that you took time, uh, out of your drive and your journey back home to talk with us today. This has been a lot of fun. Uh, Ashley Lewis, third Generation Truck driver, thank you so much for the conversation.
Ashleigh Lewis
Thank you so much for having me. I've had an absolute blast.
Anita Rao
You can find out more about Truck Driver Ashleigh Lewis and author Anne Balay at our website, embodiedwunc.org. You can find all episodes of Embodied the Radio Show there and subscribe to our weekly podcast. A special thanks to filmmaker Hansen Bursic and his team for connecting us with Ashleigh. Ashleigh will be featured in their forthcoming documentary, the Trans Trucker Project, where she'll reflect on life, love and loss on her drive to a queer trucker Christmas party in Florida. That documentary is planned to come out in 2026, and you can find more information about it in our show notes. For behind the scenes and bonus content from Embodied follow us on Instagram. Our handle is at embodied WUNC. Today's episode was produced by Kaia Findlay and Eli Chen, and edited by Amanda Magnus Wilson Sayre provided editorial guidance. Nina Scott is our intern, and Jenni Lawson, our technical director. This program is recorded at the American Tobacco Historic District, North Carolina Public Radio is a broadcast service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I'm Anita Rao.