Longtime Seattle Times Columnist Resigns Over Sophie Cunningham Controversy

The Cunningham controversy erupted from comments she made in an interview with ESPN published July 21.

Published: 8/21/2026, 2:49:44 PM EDT

Longtime Seattle Times Columnist Resigns Over Sophie Cunningham Controversy — Sophie Cunningham #8 of the Indiana Fever participates in warmups prior to a game against the Dallas Wings at American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, on Aug. 20, 2026. (Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

A columnist at the Seattle Times resigned over an op-ed weighing in on the Sophie Cunningham controversy.

Matt Calkins worked for the newspaper for 11 years. He was planning on writing an op-ed about the controversy around transgender athletes in women's sports in the context of the Indiana Fever's game against the Seattle Storm. When the paper refused to run the story, he resigned on the spot.

"Toward the end of last month, before the Seattle Storm hosted the Indiana Fever, I spoke to people attending a rally in support of Sophie Cunningham outside Climate Pledge Arena," Calkins wrote in a post on the newsletter platform Substack. "The Fever guard had recently taken a stance against biological males competing in women’s/girls sports, and a few dozen folks showed up to express their gratitude for her position."

One of the attendees was Ahnaleigh Wilson, a teenager from East Wenatchee, Washington. Wilson, 16, has become an advocate for protecting girls' sports after losing a track meet to a transgender competitor in 2024. Wilson told podcaster Brandi Kruse in an interview outside the stadium that she was berated by Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton for wearing "XX/XY" shirts and holding up a poster supporting Cunningham. She was further harassed by several fans.

The Storm later issued an apology, and Keaton was suspended by the league.

Cunningham reached out to support Wilson and the friend who attended with her.

"I truly believe there is a safe space and love for EVERYBODY," she wrote on X. "Biological girls, biological boys, trans women, and trans men. Everyone is welcome at my table! You can disagree and still be kind.Bravo to those girls for standing up for what they believe. You’ll be hearing from me soon [heart emoji] yay for gifts. Truly embarrassing of the co-owner. Unfortunately shows the type of leader she is."

Wilson stressed to Calkins that she is not anti-transgender. Calkins turned Wilson's story into an op-ed entitled, "Agreeing with Sophie Cunningham’s stance doesn’t make you transphobic." He submitted the article on July 31, telling his editor that there was no rush to run it. The editor then reached out to him on Aug. 3, saying he was running the article up the chain. The op-ed was scrapped on Aug. 6, on the basis that he hadn't previously informed his editor about the post.

"I didn’t buy this reasoning," Calkins wrote. "If that were the case, the piece would have been killed on the spot, not passed through the hands of multiple editors over several days.

"My response? To resign on the spot."

The op-ed has since been published on Substack.

Calkins had previously written several other op-eds that cut against the grain of legacy media narratives: one piece challenged the validity of the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team's equal pay lawsuit. Another pushed back on the Black Lives Matter movement, when Washington State high school basketball coach Mike Bethea urged people not to demonize the police. He also criticized "cancel culture" in sports.

"The common theme? All of these challenged prevailing newsroom narratives and likely would have triggered the outrage mob," Calkins wrote.

He said that as a journalist, it is his duty to engage with pressing issues, and he felt like he could no longer do his job. He wrote that he was uncertain about his future in the industry, but fear of the unknown outweighs censorship.

"All that’s certain is that I’m done holding back," he concluded. "The best things in life are free — speech being at the top of the list."

The Cunningham controversy erupted from comments she made in an interview with ESPN published July 21. In the interview, she pushed back on notions that she is a "MAGA Barbie" because of her looks, her hometown of Columbia, Missouri, and reports that she engages with pro-Trump and conservative content on social media. She did, however, weigh in on the issue of trans athletes.

"I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I'm like, 'I never once said that,'" she told the outlet. "I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn't have to go against biological men."

She has since received support from Vice President J.D. Vance, former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines, ESPN host Stephen Smith, and Pro Football Hall of Famer Brian Urlacher, among others.