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Headshot of Melissa Gira Grant
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
October 2, 2025
Melissa Gira Grant
A Grim New Report Shows How Pregnant People Have Been Policed Post-Roe
New research documents the myriad ways pregnancy outcomes have been criminalized in the post-Roe legal environment.
September 25, 2025
Melissa Gira Grant
The Right​’s Baseless​ Project to ​Link Trans People​ With Extremism
A campaign for the FBI to adopt a new designation of “transgender ideology–inspired violence and extremism” is less about law enforcement than politics.
September 19, 2025
Melissa Gira Grant
Trump’s Terrifying, Self-Serving Rebrand of Political Violence
Now it only counts when the left does it.
September 11, 2025
MagazineMelissa Gira Grant
The Native Activist Who Keeps Going Back to Alligator Alcatraz
Betty Osceola’s tribe, the Miccosukee, has joined a federal lawsuit challenging the “unlawful construction” of the detention camp on land tribal members consider their own.
August 19, 2025
Melissa Gira Grant
Federal Agents Are the New Proud Boys
It used to be far-right groups who flooded cities wearing masks and military gear, looking for a fight. Now it’s anonymous federal agents who are violently attacking people on the street.
August 14, 2025
Melissa Gira Grant
DHS’s Neo-Nazi Memes Show the Agency for What It Is
From the beginning, the Department of Homeland Security has downplayed the threat of white nationalism while focusing its law enforcement power on groups it deems a threat to an imaginary ideal America.
August 12, 2025
Melissa Gira Grant
Trump Is Taking Over D.C. Police Because He’s a Racist Thug
Trump doesn’t care about “crime.” He cares about the right white people being in charge.
August 8, 2025
Melissa Gira Grant
The Blue-State Hospitals Carrying Out Trump’s Anti-Trans Agenda
In states where gender-affirming care remains legal, some hospitals have nonetheless stopped providing it. What gives?
July 31, 2025
Melissa Gira Grant
QAnon Isn’t Dead. It Lives in the Heart of the Republican Party.
The bizarre, powerful conspiracy theory has been declared ​m​oribund many times over. But rather than ​disappear, it ​went mainstream.
July 24, 2025
Melissa Gira Grant
The Abuses at ICE Detention Centers Fulfill a Trump Campaign Promise
Mass detention isn’t merely a step along the way to achieving Trump’s goal of mass deportation. Mass detention is also the goal.
July 17, 2025
Melissa Gira Grant
ICE Is Making an Example of California
The repeated targeting of California workers is ​a deliberate spectacle, meant to show the rest of​ the country what to expect if we don’t fall in line.
July 2, 2025
Melissa Gira Grant
The Grand Opening of an American Concentration Camp
The Republicans are proudly calling it “Alligator Alcatraz.” Let’s call it what it is.
June 26, 2025
Melissa Gira Grant
What Everyone Is Getting Wrong About SCOTUS’s Trans Rights Ruling
The Skrmetti decision to uphold a state ban on gender-affirming care for minors was not as sweeping as it seems—nor is the trans rights movement to blame for it.
June 19, 2025
Melissa Gira Grant
Vance Boelter and the Rise of “Spiritual Warfare”
The accused assassin in Minnesota may have seen himself as an entrepreneurial missionary, influenced by a theology of “violent prayer” and spiritual war.
June 10, 2025
Melissa Gira Grant
The Los Angeles Protests Are an Act of Self-Defense
Residents of L.A. aren’t merely protesting ICE; they’re attempting to protect their communities from ICE’s raids.
June 5, 2025
Melissa Gira Grant
Missouri’s Historic Abortion Victory Is Crumbling Before Our Eyes
The state Supreme Court effectively restored an abortion ban voters believed they’d defeated just months ago. The reversal ​points up the risks of relying on ballot measures to ensure abortion access.
May 21, 2025
MagazineMelissa Gira Grant
Missouri’s Struggle to Restore Abortion Access
The state’s voters defeated an abortion ban. So why can’t more people get one?
April 30, 2025
Melissa Gira Grant
Missouri’s New Fight to Roll Back Abortion Age Restrictions
An abortion-support text line is challenging two Missouri laws that limit young people’s access to abortion. Why have other reproductive rights groups been so reluctant to make similar challenges?
April 24, 2025
Melissa Gira Grant
The Trump Administration Isn’t Pro-Family. It’s Pro-Patriarchy.
So-called pronatalist policies to increase the birth rate often involve rewarding the “right” kind of family—an exercise that’s hard to separate from its sexist and racist origins.
April 22, 2025
Melissa Gira Grant
The Trump Team Knows Its Case Against Abrego Garcia Is Thin
That’s precisely why the accusations are getting wilder.

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