SEATTLE—Longtime sports columnist Matt Calkins resigned from The Seattle Times on Thursday after 11 years, saying the newspaper declined to publish a column he wrote presenting the views of two female student-athletes opposed to competing against biological males.
“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,” wrote Calkins on X.
In a statement on Substack, Calkins said he interviewed the athletes after attending a rally outside Climate Pledge Arena supporting Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham, who had spoken against biological males competing in women’s and girls’ sports. One was 16-year-old Ahnaleigh Wilson, who said she lost a track and field race to a biological male in eighth grade. The other was Frances Staudt, who said she faced daily verbal abuse after refusing to play against a biological boy in a basketball game. Both young women, he said, stated they were not anti-trans.
The premise of the unpublished column, Calkins said, was that supporting the separation of biological females and males in sports does not automatically make someone transphobic. Calkins submitted a draft on July 31 and said the piece was reviewed by multiple editors over several days before his editor told him it would not run because he had not given advance notice.
Calkins rejected the editor’s explanation and resigned.
Other columns allegedly spike by the Seattle Times include one questioning whether members of the U.S. women’s national soccer team were victims of discrimination in their equal-pay lawsuit, another on cancel culture in sports, and a piece after George Floyd’s death urging people to listen to a Black basketball coach who advised against stereotyping police officers.
Calkins said the common theme was that the pieces challenged prevailing newsroom narratives.
Sport & State have already reached out to Calkins sharing on social media that they “may have a job for you.”
Author: Mario Lotmore
One Response
Thank you very much for covering this. I’m a mixed race Mexican-American woman, formerly a lifelong progressive who worked bilingual services, and though I marched years ago for LGBT equality, I’ve been politically homeless for the past 10 years. Biological males competing against women in sports is just one of the issues and why I stopped reading legacy media because it has become too rigid/party line and keeps dismissing even liberal heterodox views as right wing etc. Now I just take note of reporters and journalists who I think are reporting with integrity and who acknowledge a diversity of views. Thank you for covering this in a way that’s fair and with integrity.