Jack Donovan (born 1974) is an American far-right writer and activist. A self-described masculinist, Donovan was an influential figure in the alt-right until he disavowed the movement in 2017. He has at various times advocated male supremacy, white nationalism, fascism, and the political disenfranchisement of women. He led a chapter of the Wolves of Vinland, a Norse neopagan organization and SPLC-designated hate group, from 2014 to 2018.
Personal life
Donovan was born in 1974 and grew up in a blue-collar household in rural Pennsylvania. He moved to New York in the 1990s to study fine art. During this period, he says that he attended and worked as a dancer at gay clubs, marched in gay pride parades, and associated with drag queens. He later dropped out of college and became a manual laborer. Donovan has also lived in California and Portland, Oregon. He has worked as a club dancer, truck driver, and tattoo artist.
Donovan is a former Satanist, and became an ordained priest of the Church of Satan in 2007. He left the church in 2009.
Donovan has been described as gay, though he does not use the label for himself and has criticized gay culture as effeminate. He has described himself as an "androphile", a term he uses to describe romance and sex between masculine men. In his 2006 book Androphilia: A Manifesto, he wrote, "I am not gay because the word gay connotes so much more than same-sex desire... The word gay describes a whole cultural and political movement that promotes anti-male feminism, victim mentality, and leftist politics." He removed the book from print in 2017, and has said he has "transcended both that identity and that sexuality".
Career
Books
Donovan has authored several books about masculinity and masculism.
Donovan published Androphilia: A Manifesto: Rejecting the Gay Identity, Reclaiming Masculinity under the pseudonym Jack Malebranche in 2006. In this book, Donovan describes what he sees as a distinction between same-sex desire and the word "gay", which to him "describes a whole cultural and political movement that promotes anti-male feminism, victim mentality, and leftist politics". Donovan defined himself in the term "androphile", which he used to describe men who are romantically or sexually attracted to masculine men. He removed the book from print in 2017, and has said he has "transcended both that identity and that sexuality".
In 2009, Donovan and Nathan F. Miller co-authored the book Blood Brotherhood and Other Rites of Male Alliance. Originating from his belief that same-sex relationships in men are intrinsically different from marriage, the book discusses formalizing homosexual male relationships based on blood-bonding rituals in various cultures.
In 2012, Donovan published The Way of Men, which has since been translated into French, Portuguese, and German. In this book, he advocates for a societal structure he calls "the gang" or "The Brotherhood": small groups of men banding together for survival against the outside world.
He published a collection of essays and speeches titled A Sky Without Eagles in 2014, and the books Becoming a Barbarian in 2016 and A More Complete Beast in 2018.
Other work
Donovan wrote about topics related to Satanism for Lust Magazine, a sexuality magazine created by members of the Church of Satan. In 2007, Donovan (using the Malebranche pen name) edited and published Lust Magazine: The Archives 2003–2006, a collection of selected works from the magazine.
Donovan used to write for the online anti-feminist journal, The Spearhead, which was published from 2009 to 2014.
Donovan was an early writer for AlternativeRight.com, an online magazine founded by Richard B. Spencer that was published from 2010 to 2012. Donovan also wrote for another of Spencer's publications, Radix Journal, for Jared Taylor's American Renaissance, and for Greg Johnson's Counter-Currents.
Donovan spoke at the American Renaissance conference in 2014. He also spoke in 2013 and 2015 at the National Policy Institute (NPI), Spencer's white supremacist think-tank. The Daily Stormer's Andrew Anglin led a boycott of the 2015 National Policy Institute conference after learning that Donovan was speaking, opposing the conference's choice to invite a homosexual speaker. Michael Hill of the League of the South refused to share a stage with Donovan at a NPI conference because of Donovan's sexuality.
In Milo Yiannopoulos's March 2016 Breitbart article, "An Establishment Conservative's Guide to the Alt-Right", the provocateur relied on Donovan's writings alongside those of Richard B. Spencer and Steve Sailer. In May 2016, Donovan appeared on Yiannopoulos's podcast.