Matt Calkins resigned from the Seattle Times on Thursday after saying editors refused to publish his column about the Save Women's Sports movement. He said that after 11 years at the paper, the decision left him unable to do the job he was hired to do.
Calkins said he had tried to write through the eyes of two Washington student-athletes who oppose allowing transgender girls to compete in female sports. He said he submitted the piece a couple Fridays ago, then waited six days before editors told him it would not run.
That delay turned a rejected column into a break with the paper. Calkins said he wanted the voices of girls speaking out against trans athletes in women's sports to be heard, and he tied the piece to the wider debate that has followed a July 28, 2026 game between the Seattle Storm and the Indiana Fever at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, Wash., after attending a rally supporting Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham.
He said the explanation he was given was brief: that he had not told editors in advance and so the paper could not run it. Calkins said he did not buy that reason, though he said he respected his former editors and held no personal animosity toward them. His broader complaint was sharper than a single rejected column: he said that whenever he went against the grain, his columns would get spiked, and that he could not keep working as a columnist if his voice was being stifled.
The Seattle Times had not responded after a request for comment, leaving the paper's side of the dispute unexplained. What is clear is that the resignation of a columnist after 11 years there now puts the paper's judgment, and the limits of opinion writing on transgender athletes and women's sports, under a bright public light.
