Having made more than 280 appearances in the WNBA since 2013, Layshia Clarendon is signing off.
“The time has come for my basketball career to end,” they wrote on Instagram Friday. “I am deeply at peace with this choice as my mind, body and spirit know unequivocally that it’s time to move on.”
Clarendon’s post comes right from the heart and contains the admission that they are “deeply in mourning” over their retirement.
The 33-year-old never won a WNBA title during stints with six different teams, but the legacy that they leave the league is undeniable, not least in terms of their LGBTQ advocacy.
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The Indiana Fever made Clarendon the ninth pick in the 2013 draft — “me, a 21 year old kid with a blonde mohawk,” they recalled Friday.
In their third WNBA season, the Fever came up just short in the Finals against the Minnesota Lynx. However, Clarendon achieved a personal victory a few weeks before that championship series when writing for the Players’ Tribune.
“I identify as black, gay, female, non-cisgender and Christian,” they wrote at the time. “I am an outsider even on the inside of every community to which I belong. My very existence challenges every racial, sexual, gender and religious barrier.”
Titled “Keeping the Faith”, it was a trailblazing testimony for an athlete to have made in 2015, with lines such as “Jesus didn’t just die for the straight people” and a stern rebuke for those in the WNBA who were “oppressing other minorities.”
Clarendon would go on to be named one of Outsports’ Heroes of the Year. In more recent times, they placed 33rd on our inaugural Power 100 list just last year.
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They were a WNBA All-Star in 2017 while with the Atlanta Dream, the same year they married their wife, Jessica, who received a special “thank you” in Friday’s Instagram post.
“Without you, I wouldn’t have made it this long,” wrote Clarendon.
The following year they joined the Connecticut Sun, but an ankle injury limited their involvement. By early 2020, Clarendon had played their part in securing the landmark Collective Bargaining Agreement, which raised salaries and standards.
After a delayed season played behind closed doors, Clarendon came out publicly as trans and nonbinary shortly before Christmas that year.
Alongside a photo of them in a T-shirt with the slogan “There’s No One Way To Be Trans”, they wrote: “We all have masculinity and femininity inside of us and mine show up equally and wholly and fully.”
That openness made them the WNBA’s first out nonbinary player and there were special celebrations on Christmas Day as the Clarendons welcomed their first child. In early 2021, Layshia also shared the news that they had had top surgery, which was another first for a player in the league.
Through it all, the “sisterhood” of friends and teammates was there to offer support. Clarendon says there is much they will miss. “The way y’all helped me fill in my mustache, made jokes about my gender, the ways I joked about my gender. The way gender is so damn fluid in our league.”
They had to be adaptable in 2021 while on a hardship contract with the Lynx but eventually stayed for the season. Having been waived in 2022 and left off the final roster, Los Angeles Sparks head coach Curt Miller — who had worked with Clarendon while head coach of the Sun — brought them to the Sparks.
Miller said Friday: “Off the court, Lay is a trailblazer and impacted so many with their bravery to be authentic and unapologetic while consistently fighting for the marginalized.”
The Sparks having finished bottom of the 2024 standings, the guard said that L.A. had been “a sweet home to end my career” and in closing, they also made sure to thank “the dopest sports league fans around.”
Clarendon has more than 38,000 Instagram followers, and readers of their post were invited to “share a memory” in the post’s comments. Former teammates joined Jemele Hill, Sophia Bush and many other admirers in offering their congratulations.
