[17] Gay began writing essays as a teenager,[18] with much of her early work being influenced by her experience with childhood sexual violence.

[25] After completing her Ph.D., Gay began her academic teaching career in 2010 at Eastern Illinois University,[26] where she was assistant professor of English.

[33] In 2023, Gay was one of more than 370 New York Times contributors to sign an open letter expressing "serious concerns about editorial bias" in the newspaper's reporting on transgender people.

The letter characterized the reporting as using "an eerily familiar mix of pseudoscience and euphemistic, charged language", and raised concerns regarding the newspaper's employment practices regarding trans contributors.

"[37] In 2014, Gay published her debut novel, An Untamed State, which centers around Mireille Duval Jameson, a Haitian-American woman who is kidnapped for ransom.

[38] An Untamed State is often referred to as a fairy tale because of its structure and style, especially in reference to the opening sentence, "Once upon a time, in a far-off land, I was kidnapped by a gang of fearless yet terrified young men with so much impossible hope beating inside their bodies it burned their very skin and strengthened their will right through their bones," and the author's exploration of the American dream and courtship of Mireille's parents.

[38][39] The Guardian review by Attica Locke calling it "a breathtaking debut novel,"[39] and The Washington Post crediting it as "a smart, searing novel.

"[40] Gay's collection of essays, Bad Feminist, was released in 2014 to widespread acclaim; it addresses both cultural and political issues, and became a New York Times best-seller.

[41] A Time magazine reviewer dubbed Bad Feminist "a manual on how to be human," and called Gay the "gift that keeps on giving.

"[42] In The Guardian, critic Kira Cochrane offered a similar assessment, "While online discourse is often characterised by extreme, polarised opinions, her writing is distinct for being subtle and discursive, with an ability to see around corners, to recognise other points of view while carefully advancing her own.

In print, on Twitter and in person, Gay has the voice of the friend you call first for advice, calm and sane as well as funny, someone who has seen a lot and takes no prisoners.

[46] The comic followed the journey of two lovers Aneka and Ayo, who are former members of the Dora Milaje, the Black Panther's female security force.

"[53] The memoir received wide acclaim, praised by critics as "remarkable... ferociously honest,"[54] "arresting and candid,"[55] and "intimate and vulnerable.

"[59] In June 2017, Australian website Mamamia published an interview with Gay, revealing numerous details about how they prepared for her visit, which they described as a "logistical nightmare" because of the apparent consequence of her weight.

The collection, published in 2018 by HarperCollins, features essays from Gay and 29 other authors, including Stacey May Fowles, Lyz Lenz, Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Ally Sheedy, Brandon Taylor, and Gabrielle Union.

[63] The magazine would specialize in cultural criticism and provide pay for writers including Gay's work in an editorial capacity.

The first of the planned quarterly themed editions appeared in June 2019; public submissions were solicited in addition to the commissioned articles.

One of the biggest challenges of the digital media landscape is that the money is concentrated at the top and it rarely trickles down to the editors and writers, so to be able to have the support of Medium to create a publication — for however long it lasts – where we can pay people equitably and fairly is a really great thing.

"[68] Following Gay and Wendy C. Ortiz's public accusation of plagiarism against Kate Elizabeth Russell on January 21, 2020,[69] on January 29, Gay Magazine published an essay alleging that Russell's then-forthcoming novel My Dark Vanessa shared "eerie story similarities" to Oritz's memoir Excavation, calling My Dark Vanessa "fictionalized, sensationalized.

[73] In April 2018, Gay partnered with the online publishing platform Medium to create a month-long pop-up magazine called Unruly Bodies.

In a 2018 interview, Gay said, "I was surprised because I expected that I might get a lot of repetition, of [subject], not of style, but people wrote about all kinds of things.

"[63] In April 2018, over a year before the actual launch of the online magazine, "Gay Magazine" posted 25 articles in response to Gay's query under the heading Unruly Bodies; the writers were: Kaveh Akbar, Gabrielle Bellot, S. Bear Bergman, Keah Brown, Meghan Carpentier, Mike Copperman, Jennine Capó Crucet, Kelly Davio, Mensah Demary, Danielle Evans, Roxane Gay, Casey Hannan, Samantha Irby, Randa Jarrar, Kima Jones, Kiese Laymon, Carmen Maria Machado, Terese Mailhot, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Brian Oliu, Tracy Lynne Oliver, Larissa Pham, Matthew Salesses, Chelsea G. Summers and Your Fat Friend.

It started with Black Futures by Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham, followed by Torrey Peters' debut novel Detransition, Baby in February.

[82] Gay was featured in a five-minute segment of This American Life on June 17, 2016, talking about her body, and how she is perceived as a fat person.

[92] In 2022, Gay partnered with the stationery company Baron Fig on a notebook designed to aid consumers' writing processes.

[95] Much of Gay's written work deals with the analysis and deconstruction of feminist and racial issues through the lens of her personal experiences with race, gender identity, and sexuality.

[103] In 2020, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first LGBTQ Pride parade, Queerty named Gay among the fifty heroes "leading the nation toward equality, acceptance, and dignity for all people".