A former Seattle Times sports columnist announced his resignation from the paper after more than a decade.
A former Seattle Times sports columnist announced his resignation from the paper after more than a decade with the paper because of what he said was a refusal to publish a column centered on transgender athletes competing in women's sports.
Matt Calkins was hired as a sports columnist for the Seattle Times in 2015, according to his online biography on the publication's website.
Calkins typically wrote about all things Mariners, Seahawks, and the rest of the swirling sports topics throughout the Emerald City.
However, most recently, Calkins approached a more politically charged topic.
When the Indiana Fever came to town to play the Seattle Storm on July 28, a small group gathered outside Climate Pledge Arena in support of Fever guard Sophie Cunningham.
Cunningham at the time had recently controversially said that it was "common sense" that young girls should be protected from playing against biological men in competition.
The comments injected a new wave of conversation and controversy surrounding the topic of transgender athletes competing in sports, at all levels.
Calkins said he attended the game and the small rally, and encountered two teenage girls there to support Cunningham.
Calkins said the girls were Ahnaleigh Wilson, who told Calkins she had lost to a biological male in the track race in eighth grade, and Frances Staudt, who refused to play against a biological male in a basketball game and also had to share a locker room with that person.
"Their whole contention was, look, we're not anti-trans, we can't make that clear enough, we just think that biological girls should have their own spaces," said Calkins, "And that really was the essence of my column, it was just because you agree with Sophie Cunningham or Ahnaleigh or Frances, it doesn't make you transphobic."
The long-time former columnist said he thought it was an opportunity to have a healthy conversation through the experiences of the girls, while including his own thoughts on the topic.
"Let's stop throwing these labels around unless you're absolutely sure because we're trying to have an honest discussion on a very delicate topic," he said. "When people start being called bigots or insulted in that regard, then no one's going to have an honest conversation, and it's not right."
Reports then surfaced that a co-owner of the Seattle Storm, Celeste Keaton, had cursed at two of the supporters who sat inside for the game.
The Associated Press later reported that Keaton had been fined an undisclosed amount and was also suspended from attending the Storm's next five games.
“We remain committed to creating a welcoming and respectful environment for anyone who attends a Storm game,” the team wrote to the AP.
From there he wrote up his column, and submitted it to his editors on Friday, July 31.
Calkins said that editors told him it would likely not be published by their Sunday edition, but that it could run the next week.
"On Monday, [my editor] said, 'Okay, now my boss is taking it to the top two bosses on Wednesday to talk about it', and I go, this isn't a great sign, this is kind of becoming like an event," Calkins said.
"On Thursday, I got the call saying, 'Hey, we're not going to run it because you didn't say what you were doing beforehand,' which I didn't really believe as an excuse," he said, noting the story would have been shot down on Friday if that were the case.
However, Calkins said that this was not the first time he's had a story "spiked," one that did not end up being published.
According to a Substack post written by Calkins, which was linked along with his resignation announcement on X, those stories were written in recent years, going back to 2020 in one instance.
"One was a piece questioning whether players for the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team were really the victims of discrimination in their equal-pay lawsuit," Calkins wrote. "Another was a more general column on cancel culture in sports. The last, written shortly after George Floyd’s death, implored people to listen to state-champion basketball coach Mike Bethea — a black man urging the public not to stereotype cops."
"The common theme?" Calkins added. "All of these challenged prevailing newsroom narratives and likely would have triggered the outrage mob."
"If they just would have run that column, everything would have been fine at the Seattle Times," Calkins told KOMO News. "I would have been happy; I think the readers would have been happy to kind of get that kind of perspective."
"It wasn't a rage quit," Calkins added. "It might sound like an emotional decision, [but] it was something I was prepared to do based on previous restrictions I had, and I just felt that the Times' philosophy on these issues were just incompatible with what I was trying to do as a columnist."
Calkins said he believes other columnists at his former publication seem to hold specific political beliefs.
“I think most of our columnists kind of do go a certain way. So, it's which is, we'll just say, kind of the liberal left-wing way," he said, "I don't like to talk in terms of right and left too much, but you can kind of tell at the Seattle Times that they have a certain bent, and that's fine."
Calkins shot down claims online that he was using the situation as an out to join conservative-minded sports publications or other types of outlets that would champion or platform pieces such as the one he wished to publish.
"I would say if you could get in my head before today and understand the panic that I have felt for the past couple of weeks since I announced my resignation, then you would know that's not the case and it's just some lighthearted excuse," Calkins said, "People are going to believe what they want to believe they can say, oh, you're trying to grift on this, but no."
Calkins said that he reflects "mostly fondly" on his 11 years with the Seattle Times.
He said he holds no malice for the paper and believes that there is a lot of talent, especially in the sports department.
