I was a sports columnist at the Seattle Times for 11 years. This is why I resigned

I really wanted the column to run. I didn’t think it would, but I felt obligated to try to get it in.

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. 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 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.

I sent a draft after talking to my editor the morning of Friday, July 31, telling him there was no rush to run it. He told me later that day that he and others were looking at it, but that it wouldn’t be ready for Sunday’s paper. Monday night, I got an email saying that his boss was hoping to talk to the top two newsroom editors about it on Wednesday. No feedback had been given to me. Thursday afternoon, my editor informed me that it wasn’t going to run because I didn’t tell him I was doing this in advance. I didn’t buy this reasoning. 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.

That may come off as an emotional decision, but it was exactly what I was prepared to do. This, after all, was one of several columns of mine that had been spiked at the Seattle Times.

One was a piece questioning whether players for the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team were really the victims of discrimination in their equal-pay lawsuit. Another was a more general column on cancel culture in sports. The last, written shortly after George Floyd’s death, implored people to listen to state-champion basketball coach Mike Bethea — a black man urging the public not to stereotype cops. The common theme? All of these challenged prevailing newsroom narratives and likely would have triggered the outrage mob.

I’ve always thought that it was a columnist’s duty to generate discussion on the most hot-button issues. To avoid such topics was to leave the reader shortchanged. I guess in the end, I just didn’t feel like I could do my job properly anymore.

Right now, I’m in the tenuous position of trying to defend my resignation without sounding like a malcontent. So let me say — I’m very grateful for the 11 years I had at the Seattle Times. The talent there is immense, and the editors let me have a lot of fun with other stories. I also realize where the brass is coming from. The mob is frightening and does not forget. Lots of seemingly brave souls have submitted once activists got their hooks in them. If I had more people depending on me, perhaps I’d act similarly.

But in thinking about this decision, I kept going back to an Albus Dumbledore line: “We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.”

To be honest, I’m scared shitless right now. I have no idea how the next few months or years are going to play out. But that fear beats the indignity of being muzzled.

The plan for now is to keep writing in this space. Maybe that will spawn a new career, or maybe I’ll be a dental assistant in two years. I genuinely don’t know.

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