![](\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Screen-Shot-2017-02-21-at-8.01.54-PM.png\")
<\/a>Candice Wiggins with the Liberty in 2015<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Candice Wiggins was a college star at Stanford, the third pick of the 2008 WNBA draft and a 2011 champion.\u00a0And at the mountaintop of her basketball career, her sexuality marred the moment.<\/p>\n
There is a \u201cvery, very harmful\u201d culture running throughout the WNBA, she says, which saw her get bullied during her eight-year career because she is heterosexual.<\/p>\n
Wiggins, who last played in the league in 2015, said she retired prematurely to leave a league that she estimated \u2014 wildly \u2014 is 98 percent lesbian, and which is played in such\u00a0isolation that it weighs on the people on the court.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t like my dreams came true in the WNBA. It was quite the opposite,\u201d Wiggins said in an extensive San Diego Tribune story published Monday<\/a>.\u00a0\u201c\u2026 I wanted to play two more seasons of WNBA, but the experience didn\u2019t lend itself to my mental state. It was a depressing state in the WNBA. It\u2019s not watched. Our value is diminished. It can be quite hard. I didn\u2019t like the culture inside the WNBA, and without revealing too much, it was toxic for me. \u2026 My spirit was being broken.\u201d<\/p>\n The 30-year-old couldn\u2019t take it anymore \u2014 being harassed for being straight and fighting for attention in a league that is starved.<\/p>\n \u201cMe being heterosexual and straight, and being vocal in my identity as a straight woman was huge,\u201d Wiggins said. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Wiggins, who played for the Lynx, Shock, Sparks and Liberty, claimed the issues revolve around the lack of attention the league has garnered as the WNBA struggles with ticket sales and TV ratings. For the 2016 season, the WNBA said<\/a> its average attendance was\u00a07,655 \u2014 its highest since 2011.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a lot of jealousy and competition, and we\u2019re all fighting for crumbs,\u201d Wiggins said. \u201cThe way I looked, the way I played \u2013 those things contributed to the tension.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople 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\u2019d never been thrown to the ground so much. The message was: \u2018We want you to know we don\u2019t like you.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n