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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
July 8, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
Reproductive Coercion Wins at the Supreme Court
Conservatives have prevailed in an effort to deny people bodily autonomy. That’s always been their fight.
June 25, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
The Justice Department’s Fake Fight Against Sex Trafficking
Newspapers love a good “Feds take down sex trafficking” story, even if there are no sex traffickers actually taken down.
June 18, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
A Worker Uprising at Planned Parenthood
Staff at the New York affiliate of the health care provider say their CEO is abusing her power and compromising their mission.
June 16, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
A Glimpse of a Trans Future
A historic Supreme Court ruling arrives in the middle of an uprising for Black trans lives.
June 9, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
The Rush to Redefine “Defund the Police”
An abolitionist demand rose to mainstream prominence. Now every politician and cable news talking head is suddenly an expert.
June 3, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant, Katie McDonough
Protest Medics on Being Targeted by the Police, in Their Own Words
“The cops at the protest that day wouldn’t make eye contact. They were laughing at one point. I think they think this is funny.”
May 29, 2020
Patricia, Melissa Gira Grant
I Gave Birth While Incarcerated During a Pandemic
“It got to the point where us pregnant females were denying our medical treatment. It was almost like a boycott.”
May 28, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
The Pandemic Is the Right Time to Defund the Police
The coronavirus has slowed much American police work, but the rate of police killings has remained relatively unchanged.
May 19, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
Ronan Farrow Is Not a “Resistance” Journalist
Ben Smith’s explosive column in The New York Times seizes on the reporter’s alleged lack of rigor, but mistakes his target for a movement.
May 13, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
The Coronavirus Is Making Us All Camgirls
For millions of newly remote workers, doing your job now involves looking the part, figuring out your angles, and performing for the camera.
May 12, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
Congress May Hand Bill Barr the Keys to Your Online Life
Against the backdrop of the coronavirus crisis, our unaccountable surveillance state is set to expand.
May 8, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
The Pandemic Surveillance State
In the drive to “reopen” the economy, the means to radically expand tech-based surveillance and criminalize our everyday lives are there for the taking.
April 30, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
Joe Biden’s Tired Feminist Shield
How Tara Reade’s allegations bring us back to a familiar cycle of denial and complicity
April 28, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
A Woman’s Worth in a Pandemic
One in three jobs held by women in the U.S. is deemed “essential” right now. Will we value that labor after the crisis has passed?
April 21, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
A Brief Criminal History of the Mask
How a New York law on “masquerading” passed in the early nineteenth century has been used—and abused—in the decades since
April 15, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
Pleading for Clemency in a Pandemic
Petitions for early release reveal the contours of people’s lives before incarceration, conditions on the inside, and what might come after.
April 10, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
The New American Death Sentence
Police are making low-level arrests even as public health experts have called for immediate decarceration to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
April 7, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
The Shock Doctrine Came for Bail Reform
Conservative opponents of cash bail reform in New York saw an opportunity in the pandemic—and took it.
March 24, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
Scenes From an American Pandemic
Hospital workers, street medics, and people in prison describe navigating the coronavirus and life as they know it right now.
March 10, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
No Justice for Harvey Weinstein’s Victims
A long prison sentence can’t repair the harm he caused for dozens of women over many decades. What would it look like to demand more?

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