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Seattle Times columnist Matt Calkins resigns over spiked transgender athletes column

Calkins said the paper refused to publish his piece on WNBA star Sophie Cunningham’s stance on women’s sports

AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made

Published
WNBA star Sophie Cunningham’s stance on transgender athletes has sparked controversy — and drawn praise from President Donald Trump’s administration.

What this story says

  • Matt Calkins resigned from the Seattle Times on 20 August 2026 after the paper refused to publish his column on transgender athletes in women’s sports.
  • Calkins said the column drew from interviews with student-athletes who oppose transgender girls competing in female sports, and that an editor told him six days after submission it would not run.
  • The Seattle Times has not commented on Calkins’ resignation or the spiked column. Calkins said the paper had declined to publish other proposed columns.
  • Sophie Cunningham, whose stance the column addressed, told ESPN she is ‘very much in the middle’ politically and denies hating transgender people.

Who covered it

Left 9%(1)Centre 27%(3)Right 64%(7)

Percentages are shares of the 11 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. Coverage measured .

Trust

55/100

Craft

55/100

Hype

55/100

11 sources · methodology

Thin on the left so far

Only 1 of the 11 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated left.

This story is still being watched, so it is a count and not yet a finding. Coverage keeps arriving for hours after an event, and a side that has published nothing this morning may publish by tonight. If it is still true when we stop checking, we will say so plainly.

Matt Calkins resigned from the Seattle Times on 20 August 2026 after 11 years as a sports columnist. He said the paper refused to publish a column he wrote on transgender athletes in women’s sports, which included interviews with two Washington student-athletes who oppose allowing transgender girls to compete in female sports. Calkins said an editor informed him six days after he submitted the draft that it would not run.

In a post on his Substack, Calkins said the column argued that supporting the separation of biological males and females in sports does not make someone transphobic. He said the Seattle Times had also declined to publish other columns he proposed, which he described as challenging "prevailing newsroom narratives". Calkins said he resigned because he could no longer perform the job he was hired to do.

The Seattle Times has not commented on Calkins’ resignation or the spiked column. Sophie Cunningham, the WNBA player whose stance on transgender athletes the column addressed, told ESPN in July 2026 that she is "very much in the middle" politically and that she wants to "protect young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men".

What the coverage left out

None of the centre-rated digests mentioned that Calkins said the Seattle Times had declined to publish other proposed columns. None of the right-rated digests mentioned that Cunningham told ESPN she is "very much in the middle" politically. The HuffPost report was the only one to quote Calkins’ statement that he resigned because he could no longer "do my job properly".

Still developing. We have re-checked which outlets are covering this 3 times, most recently on 21 Aug 2026, 03:00, and will add the sides that appear.

How each side covered it

Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.

Left

1 rated outlet

  • The HuffPost report led on Calkins’ claim that the Seattle Times spiked his column because it broached the subject of transgender athletes in women’s sports. It quoted Calkins’ Substack post, where he said the column drew from interviews at a rally supporting Sophie Cunningham, and that an editor told him the piece would not run because he had not informed the paper in advance. HuffPost also quoted Calkins’ statement that he resigned because he could no longer "do my job properly".
  • HuffPost included Cunningham’s comment to ESPN that she is "very much in the middle" politically and that she had received "negative feedback about me hating trans". The report described Calkins’ column as arguing that "supporting the separation of biological females and males doesn’t automatically make you transphobic". It also noted that the Seattle Times declined to comment on personnel matters.

Centre

3 rated outlets

  • The three centre-rated digests all reported that Calkins resigned after the Seattle Times refused to publish his column on transgender athletes in women’s sports. The Hill and Awful Announcing digests mentioned that the column supported Sophie Cunningham’s stance. Awful Announcing noted that Calkins said the resignation was his decision after the paper declined to publish several of his columns. The Comeback digest described the spiked column as part of a broader conversation stemming from Cunningham’s comments.

Right

7 rated outlets

  • The seven right-rated digests all led on Calkins’ resignation and the Seattle Times’ decision to spike his column. Twitchy, the New York Post, the Washington Times, NewsBusters, and ussanews.com digests described the column as opposing transgender girls competing in female sports. The Washington Times digest said the column posited that those who oppose biological men playing in women’s sports are not transphobic.
  • Fox News and nytimespost.com digests said the column centred on two Washington student-athletes who oppose allowing transgender girls to compete in female sports. NewsBusters quoted Calkins’ social media post, where he said the spiked column was written from the perspective of female student-athletes opposed to transgender participation in their sports. None of the right-rated digests mentioned Cunningham’s comment to ESPN that she is politically moderate.

Questions about this coverage

How did the left and right cover Seattle Times columnist Matt Calkins resigns over spiked transgender…?
Of the 11 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 9% are rated left, 27% are rated centre, 64% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
Is Seattle Times columnist Matt Calkins resigns over spiked transgender… left or right?
Too few of the outlets on this story carry a published leaning rating to say. 11 of them do, and this site does not characterise a field under 12: at that size one newsroom filing moves the share by ten points. The percentages above are the count as it stands.
Is the coverage of Seattle Times columnist Matt Calkins resigns over spiked transgender… biased?
Seattle Times columnist Matt Calkins resigns over spiked transgender athletes column is one event reported by 11 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
Which side is not reporting Seattle Times columnist Matt Calkins resigns over spiked transgender…?
When we first saw this story, outlets rated left had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
Which outlets covered Seattle Times columnist Matt Calkins resigns over spiked transgender…?
11 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
Why did Matt Calkins resign from the Seattle Times?
Matt Calkins resigned on 20 August 2026 after the Seattle Times refused to publish his column on transgender athletes in women’s sports. He said the paper had also declined to publish other proposed columns, and that he could no longer perform the job he was hired to do. The Seattle Times has not commented on his resignation.
What was Matt Calkins’ spiked column about?
Calkins’ column argued that supporting the separation of biological males and females in sports does not make someone transphobic. It drew from interviews with two Washington student-athletes who oppose allowing transgender girls to compete in female sports. Calkins said an editor told him six days after submission that the column would not run.
What did Sophie Cunningham say about transgender athletes?
Sophie Cunningham told ESPN in July 2026 that she is "very much in the middle" politically and wants to "protect young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men". She denied hating transgender people and said she aims to extend love and truth. Her stance was the focus of Calkins’ spiked column.
Which outlets reported that the Seattle Times declined other columns?
HuffPost reported that Calkins said the Seattle Times had declined to publish other proposed columns that "challenged prevailing newsroom narratives". None of the centre-rated or right-rated digests mentioned this claim.

Read it at the source

11 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.

Left

1

Centre

3

Right

7

Not rated

0

No outlet in this group ran the story.

How did this read?

About the coverage, not about the story. We do not ask whether you agree with what happened — we have no honest use for that answer.

Matt Calkins resigns after Seattle Times spiked column on transgender athletes | MediaBias News