Calkins spent 11 years covering sports for the Seattle Times, and announced his resignation from the paper yesterday on Substack. His stated reason for resigning is that his editors refused to publish a column he wrote about anti-trans protestors who gathered outside the arena before a recent Seattle Storm game. After interviewing one of the protestors, he was inspired to write:
One of them was 16-year-old Ahnaleigh Wilson, who’d lost to a biological male in a track and field race in eighth grade and was holding a sign reading “Thank You Sophie for Speaking up for Girls!”
I didn’t know if I was going to write something at that point, but after she allegedly got cussed out by a Storm co-owner during the game, I felt like I had to weigh in.
One thing Wilson emphasized to me at the rally was that she wasn’t anti-trans. Another student-athlete named Frances Staudt — who said she’s endured daily verbal abuse after refusing to play against a biological boy in a basketball game — echoed Wilson’s sentiment.
So that was the thesis of my column (which you can read here) — that supporting the separation of biological females and males doesn’t automatically make you transphobic, so let’s stop throwing those labels around.
Calkins claims that his editors held onto the column for almost a week before informing him that the paper wouldn't be running it, at which point he resigned.
If Calkins's editors deserve any criticism, it is only for how long it took them to communicate their decision. A column with a thesis as obviously wrong as the one Calkins produced should be spiked without too much consideration. If a writer brings an editor a poorly written or poorly argued column that the editor never asked for, it is the editor's duty to put it into the trash can as quickly as possible, so that the writer can find a better idea on which to spend their time.
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