Cunningham, now in her eighth WNBA season, stirred some controversy when she discussed transgender participation in women’s sports during an ESPN profile.

“I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans,” Cunningham said as part of an ESPN profile published on July 21. “And I’m like, ‘I never once said that.’ 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.”

Cunningham faced criticism for her comments, some saying she’s anti-trans.

Protesters both supporting and opposing Cunningham gathered for the Fever’s game against the Seattle Storm on July 28. Two teenage girls with courtside seats brought signs to support Cunningham. 

“Thank you Sophie for speaking up for girls,” the sign read.

The Seattle Times allegedly refused to run a column written by Matt Calkins centered on women’s sports, activists, and their pro-Cunningham stance. Calkins said he had sent a draft of his column to his editor on July 31, but after nearly a week of back-and-forth, he decided to resign.

“I mean, let’s be clear, this is Seattle’s largest newspaper, and the fact that its leadership would not run a column that more than 80% of the American people agree with, ‘Yeah, men shouldn’t play against women in sports, let’s protect women,’ I mean this is pure censorship,” Concha said.

Calkins spoke to Fox Digital about his resignation.

In the interview, Calkins said he didn’t feel like he could do the job he was hired to do. Calkins worked for the Seattle Times as a sports columnist for 11 years, and also noted that this wasn’t the first time one of his columns had been spiked.

“The common theme? All of these challenged prevailing newsroom narratives and likely would have triggered the outrage mob,” Calkins said in a column originally posted on Substack.

“Just because you agree with someone like Sophie Cunningham on this issue, it doesn’t mean you’re transphobic,” Calkins said. “It doesn’t mean you have anything against trans people. It’s just acknowledging that two things can be true at once: You can feel compassion for someone who feels trapped in the wrong body, but you can also understand that there’s a reason we separate males and females in sports. There’s a physical advantage that males have, and that’s the discussion we’re trying to have.”

‘WNBA GOING DOWN A VERY STUPID PATH’ ON TAKING SIDES ON WOMEN’S SPORTS: JOE CONCHA

Concha praised Calkins’s effort to stand up for himself. 

“The fact that he had the principles to sacrifice his career. I saw in the background of that video you were showing there, looks like he has a wife, I saw baby books there, kids as well,” Concha said. “I mean, boy, that really, really takes some principles to do that at this stage of his life.”