Candice Wiggins Says Other WNBA Players Bullied Her for Being Straight

Candice Wiggins is a decorated WNBA player. She was third pick out of Stanford University in the 2008 WNBA draft for the Minnesota Lynx, winning rookie of the year. Candice also won a WNBA Championship with the team a few years later.

Candice, at just age 30, decided to retire, stunning fans and the league. While she did have success in the WNBA, she did not feel as if she belonged. Her sexuality definitely played a part in this, according to Candice. During an interview with the Chicago Tribune, she mentioned being bullied for being a straight woman:

“I wanted to play two more seasons of WNBA, but the experience didn’t lend itself to my mental state,” Wiggins said. “It was a depressing state in the WNBA. It’s not watched. Our value is diminished. It can be quite hard. I didn’t like the culture inside the WNBA, and without revealing too much, it was toxic for me. … My spirit was being broken.

“Me being heterosexual and straight, and being vocal in my identity as a straight woman was huge,” Wiggins said. “I would say 98 percent of the women in the WNBA are gay women. It was a conformist type of place. There was a whole different set of rules they (the other players) could apply.

“There was a lot of jealousy and competition, and we’re all fighting for crumbs,” Wiggins said. “The way I looked, the way I played – those things contributed to the tension.

“People were deliberately trying to hurt me all of the time. I had never been called the B-word so many times in my life than I was in my rookie season. I’d never been thrown to the ground so much. The message was: ‘We want you to know we don’t like you.’ “