Michael Bronski: The Last Gay Liberationist

Famous at the height of Gay Liberation in the 1970s and ’80s as a theorist, writer, activist, and founder of the anarchist gay men’s periodical Fag Rag, Charles “Charley” Shively was mostly forgotten during the last three decades of his life, not unlike the radical social movement to which he gave so much.

Through Fag Rag Shively published his influential essays that theorised homosexuality as a transgressive, liberative force. Shively, along with his Gay Liberation comrades, felt homosexuals should remain outside of the mainstream—that queers were meant to be at the helm of the destruction of society as we know it.

‘The Last Gay Liberationist’ is a remembrance and reappraisal of the complicated life and legacy of Charles Shively by long-time friend and fellow activist Michael Bronski.