Be Gay, Do Crime: The Story of the Mary Nardini Gang (An Outline)

A snippet into Queer Marxism

Queer Marxism drops June 1, 2025, tracing the radical evolution of queer activism. The Story of the Mary Nardini Gang is a key piece—informing the larger book but also standing alone as critical history.

Join the Red Menace Collective today to read this project's outline and future chapters before they are released publicly.

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The First Rule of the Mary Nardini Gang: There Is No Mary Nardini

Queer Marxism has always had its warzones—between those who sought to weaponize it for total systemic collapse and those who rejected even that framework in favor of pure, ungovernable insurrection. The Mary Nardini Gang never asked for permission. They were a name without a face, a movement without leaders, a whispered refusal passed through radical circles from 2009 to 2012. No formal group. No hierarchy. Just an open call: Be Gay, Do Crime.

This project traces the rise and disappearance of the Mary Nardini Gang, the spread of their manifestos, and their ghostly resurgence in the riots and uprisings of 2020. It’s a deep dive into a moment when queer anarchism rejected Marxist collectivism in favor of pure, ungovernable rebellion.

As a standalone history, this is the most complete account of Mary Nardini ever written. As part of Queer Marxism, it’s a case study of radical queer insurrection. Their name faded, but their ideas didn’t. And like all ghosts, they return when least expected.

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Introduction: The Ghost in the Machine

It starts the way these things always start—with a whisper. A protest. A shattered window. The words “Be Gay, Do Crime” scrawled in defiant black spray paint on the side of a courthouse. No one takes credit. The police search for suspects but find none. Reporters scramble to explain the meaning behind the phrase, offering theories ranging from radical queer activism to an internet meme gone rogue.

But those who know—they know.

The Mary Nardini Gang was never an organization. It was never a structured collective with meetings and membership cards. It was, and remains, an idea. A mask. A specter that moves through the underground, surfacing only in moments of defiance. It was a name whispered in punk squats and radical bookstores, claimed in the chaos of protests, insurrections, and moments when the state’s grip momentarily faltered.

This work is an attempt to trace the movement’s path, from its earliest rumblings in Milwaukee’s anarchist underground to its lingering echoes in modern queer radicalism. But how do you tell the story of something that was never meant to be tangible? How do you investigate a group that never existed in the way people think it did?

The answer: you follow the writings, the communiqués, the actions taken in their name. You speak with those who were there—not as members, but as participants in a larger revolutionary current. You dig through the archives where their words have been preserved, long after their physical presence faded from the streets.

What follows is the story of The Mary Nardini Gang—as much as one can be told. A name that was never a name, but a weapon. A refusal. A challenge to everything that sought to contain queer life within the confines of the state.

A ghost that refuses to die.

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Continue reading the outline for this project below the paywall. It’s exhaustive and will give you an idea of the full story.