The Seattle Times misplaced sports activities columnist Matt Calkins in a extremely publicized resignation on Thursday, after Calkins claimed the paper refused to run a bit on girls’s sports activities activists.
Calkins, who spent 11 years on the outlet, mentioned the choice not to publish his column left him unable to carry out the job he was employed to do.
The column centered on two Washington student-athletes who oppose permitting transgender ladies to compete in feminine sports activities, that have been just lately on the middle of a nationwide controversy after they attended a Seattle Storm WNBA sport to help Sophie Cunningham‘s help for shielding girls’s sports activities. Calkins sought to make the case that supporting sex-separated athletic competitors doesn’t essentially replicate hostility towards transgender individuals.
Fans maintain an indication for Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham throughout the first half between the Seattle Storm and the Indiana Fever at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, Wash., on July 28, 2026. (IMAGN IMAGES by way of Reuters Connect)
“I tried to write a column through the eyes of two student athletes who were kind of speaking out against biological males in, in girls/women’s sports and I submitted this column a couple Fridays ago to my editors … basically six days went by and they said, ‘Uh, we’re looking at it. Um, let me give it to this editor. This editor is gonna have a talk with the top two editors.’ And six days later they decided it wasn’t gonna run,” Calkins informed Fox News Digital.
“All they said was that, ‘You didn’t tell us you were doing this in advance, uh, so we can’t run it.’ But I didn’t buy the excuse.”
Calkins added that he needed to platform the voices of women who converse out in opposition to trans athletes in girls’s sports activities.
“I wanted to get their voices out there,” Calkins mentioned. “I feel like if you look at most media, the girls who have to compete against biological males, I feel like their voices get stifled a lot.”
Calkins mentioned the rejection adopted a sample involving a number of earlier columns.
“Anytime I would kind of go against the grain, my columns would get spiked,” he mentioned.
Calkins emphasised that he respects his former editors and understands the stress they face when deciding whether or not to publish commentary on divisive topics. He mentioned he doesn’t harbor private animosity towards his former colleagues.
“I have a lot of respect for my editors,” he mentioned. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if I were in their situation either.”
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At the identical time, Calkins mentioned he believed concern about public backlash had more and more restricted the vary of opinions he was ready to discover.
“I couldn’t do my job as a columnist because I feel like they were stifling my voice,” he mentioned.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Seattle Times for a response, however has not heard again.
The controversy Calkins centered on in his column started earlier than a July 28 sport between the Seattle Storm and Indiana Fever at Climate Pledge Arena. Calkins attended a rally supporting Fever guard Sophie Cunningham, who has spoken in opposition to transgender girls taking part in girls’s sports activities.
At the rally, Calkins interviewed 16-year-old Ahnaleigh Wilson, a highschool runner who mentioned she had beforehand competed in opposition to a transgender athlete. He additionally later interviewed Tumwater High School basketball participant Frances Staudt, who had declined to play in a sport involving a transgender opponent.
Ahnaleigh Wilson and Sophie Cunningham (Courtesy of Elizabeth Wilson, Getty Images)
Wilson subsequently alleged that Seattle Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton confronted her inside the world and used profanity whereas criticizing her help for Cunningham. The Storm publicly apologized for the encounter, and the WNBA fined Keaton and suspended her from attending 5 residence video games, in accordance to reporting on the incident.
Calkins mentioned the encounter prompted him to write the column, which he later published on Substack after leaving the newspaper
The dispute got here as Washington voters put together to contemplate Initiative IL26-638 in November. The proposed measure would require colleges to prohibit college students it defines as biologically male from competing in sure athletic actions reserved for feminine college students. It would additionally require healthcare-provider verification of a scholar’s organic intercourse for participation in these actions.
Supporters describe the measure as a safety for equity and security in ladies’ sports activities. Opponents argue that it could discriminate in opposition to transgender college students and create invasive eligibility necessities. That wider political debate shaped the backdrop to Calkins’s column, however his resignation raises a separate query about editorial discretion and the latitude afforded to newspaper columnists.
Calkins mentioned he had no agency skilled plans when he resigned. He intends to proceed writing independently whereas contemplating what comes subsequent.
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“I love to keep writing. I love sports. I love to be able to speak my mind,” he mentioned. “Hopefully I can stay in that realm.”