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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
January 3, 2023
Melissa Gira Grant
Welcome to Ron DeSantis’s 2024 Campaign Against “Wokes”
The Florida governor and potential presidential contender used his inauguration address to target his favorite bogeyman.
December 20, 2022
Melissa Gira Grant
Failed Coup Leader of the Year: Kari Lake
The Arizona Republican echoed all of Trump’s election denial strategies from 2020. But this time, none of them worked.
November 22, 2022
Melissa Gira Grant
Elon Musk’s Anti-Trans Twitter Regime
Not content with reactivating accounts that spewed anti-trans content, Musk’s Twitter has now banned a group that organizes to protect people at LGBTQ events from far-right violence.
November 21, 2022
Melissa Gira Grant
The Massacre at Club Q Should Not Have Felt Inevitable
The attack on this LGBTQ community space did not come without warning.
November 9, 2022
Melissa Gira Grant
On an Otherwise Normal Election Day, Kari Lake Was the Last MAGA Standing
While she’s not yet tried to claim outright victory, her supporters are readying a “Stop the Steal” redux.
November 8, 2022
Melissa Gira Grant
The “Constitutional Sheriffs” Movement Is Planning to Disrupt Election Day
A group of law enforcement officers who think their authority supersedes the federal government’s are running for elections across the country—and monitoring voters at the polls.
October 20, 2022
Melissa Gira Grant
The MAGA Queen of Election Denial
Arizona was the epicenter of Trump’s “Stop the Steal.” Now Kari Lake is its lead proselytizer for the 2022 midterms.
September 28, 2022
Melissa Gira Grant
Doxxed Doctors, Library Bomb Threats, and Attacks on Pride Centers: A Week in Escalating Anti-LGBTQ Violence
Amid a rising right-wing tide of threats, recent incidents have sadly not been out of the norm.
September 22, 2022
Melissa Gira Grant
Happy Banned Book Week! Schools Are Increasingly Going After LGBTQ Books.
In the last year, works by more than 1,200 authors were banned, affecting nearly four million students.
September 20, 2022
Melissa Gira Grant
Glenn Youngkin Enlists in the Republican Governors’ War on Trans Kids
The GOP used to pass laws to scapegoat marginalized groups. Now it’s turning to executive fiat instead.
September 14, 2022
Melissa Gira Grant
Republicans Are Spreading a Bogus “Rainbow Fentanyl” Panic Ahead of the Midterms
The GOP is ramping up its rhetoric about Biden, the border, kids, and overdoses.
September 7, 2022
Melissa Gira Grant
“Libs of TikTok” and the Right’s Embrace of Anti-LGBTQ Violence
The newest campaign against children’s hospitals is part of a much larger pattern.
September 6, 2022
MagazineMelissa Gira Grant
The Pandemic Made the “Viral Underclass” Impossible to Ignore
Steven Thrasher’s new book examines how society makes people vulnerable to viruses and blames them for it.
August 18, 2022
Melissa Gira Grant
QAnon Goes to Washington, Again
There are over 20 Q-friendly candidates running for Congress or statewide office this fall.
August 11, 2022
Melissa Gira Grant
Why the Right Can’t Quit Its Antisemitic Attacks Against George Soros
Reform prosecutors are just the latest target in a long trend of conspiracy theories.
August 9, 2022
Melissa Gira Grant
Ron DeSantis’s War on LGBTQ People Is Essential to His Agenda
The Republican is using the full force of the state government against them and their supporters.
August 1, 2022
Melissa Gira Grant
A Forgotten 1990s Law Could Make It Illegal to Discuss Abortion Online
A provision in the Communications Decency Act making it a felony to talk about abortion online has been on hold since the Clinton administration. Could it be enforced by a future GOP president?
July 28, 2022
MagazineMelissa Gira Grant
The Arizona Republican Primary Is Ground Zero for America’s Hysteria Over Critical Race Theory and Drag Queens
Kari Lake and other far-right candidates have latched onto a controversy in the Scottsdale school district whipped up by conservative mothers.
July 6, 2022
Melissa Gira Grant
Pamela Paul’s Great Replacement Theory
The New York Times columnist lays the groundwork for a mainstream case for trans exclusion.
June 24, 2022
Melissa Gira Grant
The Fight for Abortion Rights Must Break the Law to Win
Now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, we can’t rely on legal means to restore the right to reproductive freedom.

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