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Melissa Gira Grant

Melissa Gira Grant is a staff writer at The New Republic, the author of Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work (published by Verso), and the co-director of They Won’t Call It Murder (executive produced by Field of Vision). She was a senior reporter at The Appeal, and a contributing writer at The Village Voice and Pacific Standard.


All Articles
February 22, 2024
Melissa Gira Grant
Alabama’s Unhinged Embryo Ruling Shows Where the Anti-Abortion Movement Is Headed
The Christian right is paving the way for a world without abortion or IVF, but with lots of embryo adoptions.
February 20, 2024
Melissa Gira Grant
The Zombie Law Trump Wants to Use to Ban Abortion Nationwide
Members of the former president’s inner circle are worried that he’ll blab about their plan to gut what remains of our reproductive freedoms.
February 8, 2024
Melissa Gira Grant
Conservatives Plan to Ban Abortion and Cut LGBT Rights Starting Next January
Project 2025’s 180-Day Playbook is a remarkably detailed guide to turning the United States into a fascist’s paradise.
February 1, 2024
Melissa Gira Grant
The GOP Has a Plan for “Online Safety.” It Involves Censoring LGBTQ Content.
Lawmakers and tech companies say they want to protect kids. For Marsha Blackburn, that means keeping them from learning about trans people.
January 31, 2024
Melissa Gira Grant
Republicans Reveal Their Endgame in the Fight Over Trans Kids
This was never about children.
January 25, 2024
Melissa Gira Grant
Joe Biden Is Running on Roe. It’s Not Enough.
The attacks on reproductive rights that are now in motion won’t be stopped by merely “codifying Roe.”
January 23, 2024
Melissa Gira Grant
DeSantis Will Now Return to What He Does Best: Terrorizing LGBTQ People in Florida
His presidential campaign may be over. But his hateful legacy lives on.
January 18, 2024
Melissa Gira Grant
Leonard Leo’s Dark Money Groups Are Targeting AIDS Relief
Conservative organizations want Republican lawmakers to block reauthorization of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, falsely claiming that it serves as a “slush fund” for abortion.
January 11, 2024
Melissa Gira Grant
Mike DeWine Is Following the Right’s Vicious Abortion Playbook on Trans Health Care
The Ohio governor’s not going to ban gender-affirming care for minors—he’s just going to make it impossible.
January 4, 2024
Melissa Gira Grant
Kellyanne Conway Thinks Americans Will Believe Almost Anything
To help the GOP avoid voter backlash over abortion, she wants to rebrand the party as pro-contraception.
January 4, 2024
MagazineMelissa Gira Grant
The Right Is Winning Its War on Schools
Using bogus scandals and funding crunches, Republicans across the country are decimating public education.
December 20, 2023
Melissa Gira Grant
Mike Johnson Is the Christian Nationalist We Should Have Seen Coming
Those who track the Christian right told people to worry about this guy. Why didn’t we listen?
November 30, 2023
Melissa Gira Grant
The Christian Right Wants to Force Teachers to Out Trans Kids
Under the guise of “parental rights,” figures like Sonja Shaw want to draft educators into their war against trans students.
November 21, 2023
Melissa Gira Grant
The Pitfalls of Outrage-Fueled Abortion Reporting
A criminal case heralded as Idaho’s first “abortion trafficking” arrest turns out to be more complicated.
November 8, 2023
Melissa Gira Grant
How to Keep Wingnuts Off the School Board
In Tuesday’s elections, liberal and progressive parents banded together to push back against the right-wing takeover of local government.
November 7, 2023
Melissa Gira Grant
Mike Johnson’s Favorite Anti-Porn App Has a Dark, Creepy History
Covenant Eyes, beloved by some Evangelicals, takes constant screenshots of the user’s activity. Unsurprisingly, the legal system has found a use for it too.
October 31, 2023
MagazineMelissa Gira Grant
Mike Johnson Has a Dangerous Victim Complex
What links his election denial and his anti-gay policies is his belief that he’s a member of a persecuted minority.
October 25, 2023
Melissa Gira Grant
The Absurd Lawsuit That Could Bankrupt Planned Parenthood
An anti-abortion activist and Texas’s attorney general have teamed up to try to force the organization out of the state—and now an anti-abortion judge has advanced their cause.
October 24, 2023
Melissa Gira Grant
DeSantis’s War on “Woke” Colleges Gets Even More Absurd—and Dangerous
A proposed rule for Florida’s public campuses would muzzle advocacy of issues “that polarize or divide society among political, ideological, moral, or religious beliefs.”
September 28, 2023
Melissa Gira Grant
The Transphobia Hidden Inside the Latest Online Safety Bills
What looks to some like a rare form of bipartisan agreement to rein in Big Tech is also a method of scrambling actual accountability—with a broad, dangerous “save the children” crusade.

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