Seattle Times columnist resigns after paper scrapped Sophie Cunningham piece

Longtime sports columnist Matt Calkins opted to resign from The Seattle Times after they allegedly declined to publish his story in support of Sophie Cunningham and her stance on transgender athletes.

Calkins announced his exit on social media Thursday, revealing the resignation after 11 years with The Seattle Times was entirely his decision. But after writing several columns that The Seattle Times decided against publishing, Calkins decided to leave.

After 11 years as a sports columnist at the Seattle Times, I have decided to resign. It was entirely my choice, and it was not an easy one. The impetus was the Times declining to run a column I wrote from the perspective of two female student athletes who were opposed to…

— Matt Calkins (@Matt_Calkins) August 20, 2026

“After 11 years as a sports columnist at the Seattle Times, I have decided to resign,” Calkins posted. “It was entirely my choice, and it was not an easy one. The impetus was the Times declining to run a column I wrote from the perspective of two female student athletes who were opposed to competing against biological males. It was one of several pieces of mine that had been spiked, and I no longer felt like I could properly do my job as a columnist. I lay out the situation in greater detail in the link below, but I want to say that I enjoyed my time with the paper, find the talent there to be immense, and have no animosity toward anyone who works there. It was just time for a change.”

Calkins expanded on his decision and published the column himself on his Substack. The column in question stemmed from the “Support Sophie Cunningham” rally for the Indiana Fever’s game against the Seattle Storm in Seattle last month. The rally occurred shortly after Cunningham’s comments about transgender athletes were published by ESPN, where she shared a want to “protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”

After the rally, Calkins wrote a column from the perspective of two female student athletes, one being 16-year-old Ahnaleigh Wilson who was allegedly cursed out by Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton for sitting courtside and holding a sign expressing support for Cunningham. Calkins submitted a draft of the column titled “Agreeing with Sophie Cunningham’s stance doesn’t make you transphobic” to his editor Friday, July 31. After receiving several notes about the draft still being under review by multiple editors, he ultimately learned it was not going to run the following Thursday afternoon.

Calkins was told the column would not run because he didn’t inform the editors about it in advance, an excuse he did not believe. In response, Calkins says he resigned immediately, noting it was the latest of several columns that were ultimately declined by The Seattle Times in recent years.

“I’ve always thought that it was a columnist’s duty to generate discussion on the most hot-button issues,” Calkins wrote on his Substack. “To avoid such topics was to leave the reader shortchanged. I guess in the end, I just didn’t feel like I could do my job properly anymore.”

Calkins added that he is “scared” after resigning from his job of 11 years, having “no idea how the next few months or years are going to play out.” But in the wake of resigning from a job over a culture-war flashpoint, the national attention Calkins is receiving has been as expected. The response may not have made his decision any easier, but Calkins surely has ample conservative media outlets tripping over themselves to tell his story. Clay Travis already told Calkins to reach out to his newly launched media venture about a possible job.

As of Thursday afternoon, The Seattle Times has not publicly responded to Calkins’ resignation.

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